Planespotting in Scotland during Coronavirus Pandemic

EDI 11/11/20 Scottish Football Team The Scottish football team departed Edinburgh at 4pm today to head to Serbia where they play in the Euro 2020 qualifiers final. If Scotland win, they will be into the finals being played next year. Scotland have not made any sort of world cup final for 23 years! I was at Edinburgh Airport watching the players disembark their coaches arriving at Signature  Flight Support who control all ground operations for business jets, VIP charters and military movements at the airport.  Today, Signature was certainly busier than the main terminal hosting the special guests. During my visit, there were only 2 other flights arriving and no departures in a two hour time period. The Boeing 737 G-SWRD from 2 Excel Aviation being used as a charter flight to take Scotland to Serbia.

British Airways Lockdown  As of 5th November 2020 England's Coronavirus restrictions have been tightened and the whole country has been put into  a 2nd lockdown. As a result of this, many more British Airways A319 and A320 have made their way up to Glasgow Airport for storage as there is no use for them currently. They have been moving them up from London Heathrow (LHR) for a few days and filling up the apron space at Glasgow. I mentioned in a previous update that there had been several A321s based at Glasgow. Currently there a 4 left and the other have now departed to Madrid meaning that the space can be used by the others that have flown up. Phase 2 of the British Airways storage at Glasgow has currently seen the following aircraft fly North on these days: Saturday November 7th 2020 ———————————————- G-EUOE. Airbus A319-131 G-EUOG. Airbus A319-131 G-EUPM. Airbus A319-131 G-EUPN. Airbus A319-131 G-EUPO. Airbus A319-131 G-EUPR. Airbus A319-131 G-EUUM. Ai...

 Glasgow Airport 2nd November 2020 These 4 aircraft are  T-6C Texan II aircraft. They arrived at Glasgow on the 31st October and are on a delivery flight from the Beech factory in Kansas. They took a few days to reach Glasgow via Ottawa, Goose Bay and Keflavik. Their final destination is RAF Valley in Wales where they will become jet trainer aircraft with 72 Squadron.  The serials include: ZM340 (construction number  PM-137 , N2786B), ZM341 (c/n  PM-138 , N2789B), ZM342 (c/n  PM-139 , N2790B) and ZM343 (c/n  PM-144 , N2811B) British Airways A321-200 As of 2/11/2020 there are 8 stored BA A321 aircraft. Many aircraft are not getting used because they have been grounded due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. Picture above is G-MEDJ and G-MEDU. Pictured left is G-EUXD, G-EUXE, G-EUXF and G-EUXD. G-EUXM and G-EUDM are now all destined for continued storage in Madrid in the not so distant future. It is likely that these airframes will never return to the skie...

Flybe Collapse Many airlines have taken a beating during the 2020 pandemic. The first major loss we had was right back at the beginning in March. The United Kingdom lost one of its most essential airlines... Flybe. Flybe was only single carrier offering cheap domestic flights connecting Edinburgh, Glasgow and others to the rest of the UK. Pre-covid they had struggled and the lack of passengers due to coronavirus was the final blow. They had gone into administration and Virgin Connect failed to take over. There was to be no other buyer and the airline collapsed. Many of their routes would be taken over by Loganair or Easyjet.                           G-PRPJ Flybe Bombardier DHC-8   at Edinburgh with no where else to go G-JEDV  Flybe Bombardier DHC-8   at Glasgow preparing for departure to fly back to its leasing company who are based out of Norway. This was one of the final Dash 8s to dep...