Planes and stuff

Thomas Cook Scandinavia OY-VKB and Cimber OY-MRG Back to 2010, a pic I hadn't published yet, with a couple of Scandinavian planes: Thomas Cook Scandinavia A321 OY-VKB and Cimber Sterling B738 OY-MRG taxiiing on the back, Loved the Cimber Sterling livery with that retro look...unfortunatelly, was another one that went down a couple of years after this shot, in 2012. OY-MRG is currently flying with Southwest Airlines as N7836A

Today decided to share a 10 year old pic that, aparently I still hadn't processed... Back then Sterling was still flying so I guess that this is really worth sharing...definitely not for its quality but for the memories.... B738 OY-SED landing on runway 23...is currently flying for Sun Country as N813SY

Já que estava no campo das recordações, por hoje ficam dois registos da Sterling que ainda não tinha partilhado por cá... Desde miúdo que a Sterling me ficou marcada por trazer à Madeira o que na altura (e ainda hoje...) pensava ser um dos mais belos aviões comerciais, o Caravelle, que ficava lindo na pintura Sterling de então.... Fundada em 1962, acabaria por passar por várias falências, reaberturas, fusões e renomeações...e falências....sim, já falei em falências mas...foram várias... Podem ver historial AQUI Ficam pois, 2 registos de Setembro de 2009, do OY-MRF, ainda com cores e títulos Sterling mas, já ao serviço da Cimber Sterling (que abriria falência em Maio de 2012....) B737 OY-MRF aterrando na 05 (agora ao serviço da Southwest, com o registo N7816B) Taxiando para a 05, com destaque para o G-MSJF da Flyglobespan (que já faliu igualmente) e para o A319 da SAS com cores retro OY-KBO... nos últimos anos, a SAS voltou a voar com 737 para a Madeira...

Infelizmente a Cimber Sterling foi mais uma que não resistiu à actual conjuntura... Depois de uma primeira falência, em 2008, com um novo fôlego em 2009, ao ser adquirida pela Cimber, e formando a Cimber Sterling, abriu falência esta semana... Era um visitante regular da Madeira (nestes últimos tempos, apenas na época de Inverno) e, nos meus tempo de criança, os Caravelle da Sterling eram sem dúvida os meus preferidos, de todos os que escalavam o velho Aeroporto de Santa Catarina (LPFU).... Ficam algumas fotos recolhidas ao longo dos tempos, que retratam um pouco da vida desta companhia por cá... em 2003 tinham uma presença forte por cá. Lembro-me de vê-los igualmente em amarelo e verde mas, creio que não tenho nenhuma foto desses... em 2004...o conceito de frigorífico ainda não estava muito entranhado em mim, já que tendo iniciado  o spotting fotográfico há pouco tempo, tudo era bom para fotografar... (e aqueles corações na cauda davam um toque diferente...) ...

Monday's are busiest days at Madeira but most of the planes are well known, so decided to go just for while, at lunch time just to get the nordic highlights of the day: Air Finland's OH-AFJ with its great (and still rare around here) livery. (second time at Madeira with new colors)   And, the other highlight would be Cimber... I didn't even knew what was the registration but, didn't matter, either Sterling or Cimber are great looking. Got lucky with today's Cimber, OY-MRU, the first Cimber livery for me this year and looks like it's also the first time I get this registration...

Despite the fantastic Air Finland livery  I decided to choose this pic, also from that day for this Week's Photo: OY-MRF, from Cimber Sterling on short final to runway 23 I'm also very fond on this livery and despite the light conditions weren't the best, still got lucky enough to get some really great reflection on the fuselage and engines: runway 23's treshold.

The break in the amount of traffic is more and more visible every day and on mondays it specially visible on the Thomson traffic. Nevertheless, Mondays at Madeira are still ruled by Thomson that turns LPMA into an authentic Thomsonland during some times of the day (late morning and lunch...) G-BYAL and G-OOBC on the stands, G-OOBP taxiing in holding and G-OOBD landing on 23  Last Monday, João Melim, a spotter from Porto Santo, was at LPMA so I went to the airport for little more than an hour. The Thomson traffic was a lot more visible than the previous monday I'd been there, probably due to the Thomson cruise ship on Funchal port. G-BYAL livery looking even older again shinning new painting of G-OOBP (that came into service with Thomson in May, 2010: former HB-ISH, from Belair) The arrival of G-OOBD Departure of G-OOBP, from runway 23 and finally an big change from the blues to full red of Sterling (OY-MRF) Thomas Cook and Thomas Cook Scandinavia are also ...

Like I posted yesterday, today was the return of Cimber Sterling . Like I was guessing, I couldn't manage to go there but curiously the season's premiere for this airline was made by the same plane that made the airline's premiere at Madeira, last year. You can check the post I've made then HERE

Tomorrow will be the return of Cimber Sterling to Madeira. The schedulle is quite thight for me but let's see what will they bring...maybe there's still an oportunity to get some old Sterling livery...

Last Monday, I managed to get OE-LNS, the first B737-800 in full Austrian livery! It was the first time it came to Madeira with this livery, which, by the way looks really nice and way better than the old Lauda livery. Had to run like hell to get it and arrived at the terminal's balcony just as it was entering the stand... The shadowed "www" in the backgound of the "Austrian.com" gives a nice touch to the engine... Was already outside the terminal when I noticed that the Cimber Sterling was also arriving, which is allways a nice catch, so went back to the balcony. This livery is really nice and nostalgic.... ...and a bit of a wider open shot so you can see the other new stuff of the day... Did you see it? No clue of what I'm talking about? Well, it's the new "Follow Me" car....hehe! It's the first time I see it.... Looks real nice!

On this Monday wasn't feeling much in the mood for going to the airport but then I noticed that one of the Thomson flights from Manchester was beeing made by G-OOBA, which had changed very recently its colors from the First Choice livery for the Thomson and also had gained winglets. The Cimber Sterling flight was also beeing made by the OY-MRG, with new livery, so decided to go to the airport. Despite beeing sunny at Funchal, the weather at Santa Cruz was quite crappy, cloudy and with light rain... Anyway, the pics... This Thomson, like I said, was the star of the morning but it still is a bit disapointing, until now I was expecting that Thomson Airways got some really nice and different livery but looks like it's confirmed they'll keep TUI's "boring blue"... The winglets look real nice on the plane, though... and the colors are quite darker than the ones in use by the "old" planes. This was the other nice catch of the day. Love this livery,...

This late Photo of the Week came to my mind after seeing one of the opening photos regarding the traffic at LPMA - Madeira on http://www.aviacaoportugal.net/ forum. It was about an open window on Haribo, the Tuifly special livery.... It reminded me this unsual pic that I took a few years ago (2005...time does fly...) I never had seen that before and never had seen it again since then... The other motive for this choice was that fact that this same aircraft is now bearing the Cimber Sterling livery and it has came to Madeira at least once (Jorge just confirmed it was twice...) as registed on Asas Madeira Blog . Great livery it is. Let's hope it comes again next Monday and I can go there, as I'm planning...