Air Méditerranée bankrupt...

Looks like French airline Air Méditerranée is down, or as stated in their website, in Judicial Liquidation....

To the memory...a set of pics taken at Madeira...

B735 F-HCOA

A321 F-GYAQ

A321 F-GYAJ

O Francês e o Checo

Há tempos ouvi a Secretária Regional do Turismo falar no desenvolvimento que o mercado francês está a ter no mercado turístico regional...não compreendo a que estatísticas foi ela buscar essa ideia já que este ano está a ser verdadeiramente miserável no que toca a ligações com a França, especialmente se considerarmos anos anteriores onde era bastante profusa e variada a oferta de companhias e origens nos voos de França, coisa que não acontece actualmente...

Isto a propósito de uma parelha que nunca mais tive o prazer de ver por cá...um A321 da Air Méditerranée (F-GYAP) e o A320 da Travel Service que ostenta a pintura especial "Prague loves you" (OK-HCA)

Quick stop on the afternoon

This week while heading to Funchal, at the end of the afternoon, made a quick stop at the Airport just in time to get the arrival of Easyjet's A319 G-EZDU with a great light...

final to runway 05

F-GYAQ, Air Méditerranée A321 getting ready to depart to Nantes

and the usual A320 from Sata, based at Madeira, CS-TKJ

New Photo of the Week: Spotting runway 23

Last monday, went, for the first time on these vacations, to the airport for an afternoon of spotting.

Lucky me, runway 23 was in use so, decided to try out a few diferent spots for the take-offs.

The best framings didn't turn out as good as I wanted (out of focus and some heat haze) but still, these points turned out to be some good locations, to explore further more...

My favorite of the day...PGA's Foker 100 CS-TPC climbing out from runway 23, to Lisbon (LIS/LPPT)

One of the targets of the day...it's been a long time since I last had photographed a Luxair and I really do like its livery...
LX-LGQ landing on 23

and the take off...too bad the best framing pics, with the airport in the back turned out too crappy...

Very early take off for Easyjet's  G-EZIO, photographed from the most usual spotting point...

Another of my favorite pics of the day... F-GYAQ, the red tail A321, from Air Méditerranée

The landing

another view of the take off, side-by-side with me...

Yet on another spot, the Sata's Q400 CS-TRG take-off to Ponta Delgada (PDL/LPPD) provided some nice shots...

The surprise of the day: G-CMAS, from Execujet, an ERJ-135 Legacy that landed on runway 23 while I was on the  side, waiting for the take-offs

G-OZBB, another target of the day as I still hadn't photographed any Monarch this year.
Also my first Monarch with the new lettering

G-EZFW, just arrived at the stand...

The red tail...

No, not talking about the WWII movie (quite crappy, even for an aviation fan...)

This morning was checking out traffic to Madeira airport (LPMA/FNC) when I noticed that the Air Méditerranée of the morning was an Airbus A321 that I had photographed last July and still hadn't processed: one with the red tail, F-GYAQ

Taking off from runway 05 ( digg a little tractor spotting, in the mix?lol)

Managed to get it on the afternoon, on its 2nd flight of the day but that's stuff for another entry....

New Photo of the Week: Home colors (and a few more)

It was quite a while since I last went for some afternoon spotting.
Didn't stay as long as I had planned but still it was enough to get some of the most importante afternoon landings...

D-AICF, one of the 3 Condors of the day...
(and still no retro colors around here....Come on Condor! Where's D-AICA?)

It was only when I was processing the pics, in the computer , that I noticed that this Air Méditerranée was in fact an Hermes Airlines B735

A close-up on home colors for this Photo of the Week (CS-TTM a TAP A319)

Time to get these ones before Condor get them out of the company

D-ABOE just moments from of touching down on 05 with a nice wingflex

F-GZHC, from Transavia France, arriving from Paris-Orly (via Porto)

Allways nice to see a colorfull apron, despite the sun trying to leave..
On the apron yet another A320 that I didn't get on the landing: Air Berlin's (Belair) HB-IOW, wich had arrived from Zurich

German traffic increasing...

Germany is one of the most important touristic markets to Madeira.
Lately the traffic from this country has been growing and this Tuesday that became a little more noticeable with the increase of Germania flights, adding another one (from Munich) to the already existing 3.

Besides that there's also 4 Tuifly's and a couple of Air Berlins (from Germany and another, from Zurich).

Also an hightlight to the return of Niki, with a flight from Vienna (made with an A320, let's hope we can see this airline's ERJ-190 again...)

Anyway, most of these flights were in the morning while I was at work...(maybe next week...)
Still a good ocasion to share a previously unreleased pic of a Germania B737 (the only one I got until now...)

G-AGET landing on runway 05

and a few more Germans (and a French) from last Thursday...

D-ABOA, the second B753 of that day.
The week before Condor started bringing a couple of these planes and that would be really great, except all the Madeira Spotters are dying to get the airline's retro A320 D-AICA....

D-ABKT, on final to 05

Air Méditerranée's A321, that returned recently to Madeira (F-GYAJ)

Another A321, D-ALSB, a former LTU plane...

Air Méditerranée

I'm getting the B735 from Air Méditerranée a lot...
Just once got the A321 (Check HERE)

Anyway, diferent angles for this one....

F-HCOA  on short final to runway 05...
Was too hot (and with heat waves) for the pics I was trying so, after the landing of this one, moved closer to the runway 

The departure, also from runway 05.
A windy and early departure

The French Palmtree

Air Méditerranée has been coming to Madeira for some time but until last monday I still hadn't caught any plane other than the B735 F-HCOA...

On monday, the planned model was an A321, so an extra, besides all the other planes I wanted to get...

When it was coming on the downwind leg to runway 05 noticed a diferent tail...it was an extra on the extra....red tail with the palmtree...

Despite the all white fuselagem the tail looks real nice

F-GYAQ

Touchdown was a little bumpy...

A Quicky for the French and the local...

Yesterday had to go to Santa Cruz so, made a quick stop at runway 23 to get the arrival of the Air Méditerranée...

It's allways nice to get some runway 23 landings on the afternoon...unfortunatelly looks like summer (and sun) still didn't find the way to Madeira...

Short final to Med'air B737

smoke on on F-HCOA landing

Just before the landing of the Air Méditerranée, still managed to get the landing of local Aeroclube Tobago CS-DCH....

passing high by the wind indicator....

Air Méditerranée

Air Méditerranée started flying to Madeira on this summer season and it's been coming to Madeira for a few weeks.
Despite that still hadn't got any pic of it.
Last Thursday decided to go for it: was coming on the afternoon right on time to get it after work and it was a B735, which is not that usual around here...

But oposite to Funchal, the weather at the airport was quite dull and it looks like the pilots had only trained Madeira's  runway 05...despite the wind was indicating runway 23, they chose, both for landing and take-off runway 05....

After missing the landing (was waiting on 23, it landed on 05...) headed for the usual spots, together with a few more spotters, which would give a  nice location for runway 23 take-off......

Despit the winds indicating 23, it linned up on 05, passing by Bulgaria Air  LZ-FBC and  Falcon 2000 PH-VBG

check the wind indicator....it was quite a long take-off run...

F-HCOA and (taxiing) the other french traffic of the afternoon,  Transavia's F-GZHE.
On the apron, parked: Air Berlin's (Belair) HB-IOR and Sata's CS-TKJ