Photo-Gallery: Planespotting at Domodedovo airport, Moscow
A close up of two Russian-made aircraft, an Alrosa Tupolev Tu-154 (a type that has already appeared in this blog) and a Red Wings Tupolev Tu-204 (or maybe Tu-214? difficult to tell from here!)
Right after attending the Etihad Airbus A380 presentation in Hamburg, I flew to Moscow's Domodedovo airport.
This was to be no ordinary arrival, since, once I cleared passport control and customs, a representative of Domodedovo airport administration picked me up and led me to join a group of Russian planespotters that were enjoying one of the "planespotting days" that the airport organizes regularly.
I have written earlier in this blog (actually on my very first Allplane post, back in 2009!) why I consider Moscow, and Domodedovo in particular, one of the most exciting places for planespotting: the diversity of airlines and aircraft types is, simply, difficult to rival.
I would like to thank you the organizers of the DME planespotting day for the perfect organization and for giving us the chance to see the airport from an unusual angle.
They drove us successively, in one of the airport buses, to two privileged locations, next to the two runways that aircraft use to land and take-off (actually, as my Lufthansa flight arrived at DME when the planespotting was already ongoing, I am likely to have been "spotted" by the same photographers I later joined to do my own sahre of spotting!).
The weather and the atmosphere was great and we could see a good cross-section of the airlines and aircraft that visit Domodedovo airport regularly.
What follows is a selection of the hundreds of pictures I took during the event...
Hitting the tarmac for an evening planespotting session at DME
Alrosa is quite a special airline, since it belongs to the diamond mining company of the same name and its livery sports, of course, a diamond. Here an Ilyushin Il-76, an aircraft type in service also with the Russian military
The thin yellow line and a Vietnam Airlines Airbus A330
A bit of Russian/Soviet aviation archaeology at DME: an Ilyushin Il-96-300 and a Il-62M of the late Domodedovo Airlines, a carrier that ceased operations in 2008. Still quite an impressive sight.
An Azerbaijan Airlines Airbus A319. Moscow is a great place to spot airliners from all the former Soviet republics
Planespotters in formation, at the edge of one of Domodedovo's runway, the one normally used for take-offs
A Japanese Dreamliner heading home
A Rusline CRJ100 readying for take-off
Rusline is a regional airline, recognizable because of its red livery embroidered with golden Russian folk motives
A Transaero Boeing 737 being tugged
The sudden appearance of this Transaero Boeing 747 got the whole planespotting crowd really excited
We were literally under its wing
Big nose
One of those sights that make Russian planespotting quite unique, an Izhavia ("Ижавиа") Yak-42, the regional airline of the Republic of Udmurtia, near the Urals
And another visitor from the Urals (or maybe not, since Ural Airlines keeps a base at Moscow Domodedovo)
Ural Airlines Airbus taxiing
Nordstar Boeing 737 closing up
A Nordstar Boeing 737 with winglets. Nordstar flies to many remote destinations in Northern Russia and Siberia
The bright green of S7, a common sight at DME
UTair Boeing 757 taking off at sunset
Transaero flies its Jumbos to many sea-and-sand destinations, from the Mediterranean to the Far East
Transaero has also a bunch of Boeing 777s
Orenair, the charter airline of the Aeroflot group, that took over flights from low cost carrier Dobrolet, when the latter was grounded because of EU sanctions against Russia
Although most of UTair fleet is based at Vnukovo airport (VKO), we could see this Boeing 767
A sight that is becoming rarer by the day, an Airbus A340, this one heading to Hong Kong
Like any metropolis of note, Moscow has also an Emirates direct link to Dubai