Came to shoot an ILS and we talked him into two!
make the most of it as less than six months to go before out of service.

I wish I'd known about the visit of the VC10.
I like VC10s, not many left now, can't understand why they are scrapping them. There's plenty of life in them yet.

Monarch to start Malta next year

I wonder where they will fit that in their schedule unless it leaves at 22:30 ish... 3rd aircraft maybe?

For some reason seems odd to have a route network of ALICANTE, FARO, IBIZA, MALAGA, PALMA AND MALTA. I would like to think that its a third aircraft. East Midlands certainly deserves a greater range of destinations from Monarch. With it they could continue the Canary Islands routes into the summer and add a few more, perhaps in Greece, Turkey and Cyprus and provide competition for Jet2!

They can either get rid of one of the current routes on two days a week, or operate it at 22:30, which could be quite justified considering IBZ is 5x a week at that hour, or have a 3rd aircraft... time will tell.

Nice seeing monarch seem to be committing to east midlands airport although it's only 1 extra route they seem interested

Mr Airtours

I am informed that it would require any of the the 120s but would not need to use 120X. Supposedly only the AN225 needs 120X

The A380 couldn't have gone on a stand on the central apron if thats what you mean? Nothing larger than a 767 allowed on there due to wingtip clearance between the lighting poles, plus i understand the entrances to quebec and romeo are not wide enough as well...

-RP

And nor did I suggest it would fit on the central, just that there are stands available for it to fit onto at the airport. The 767s dont even have full obstacle clearance on the central and require a follow me car if they need to transit through the C rather than coming onto 21 or 12R.

Monarch are obviously very pleased with the results at EMA so far and I wouldn't be surprised if Malta is a prelude to a third aircraft and the Canaries carrying on into S13, with possibly a couple to the Eastern Med.

Anyone know where the 787 will be parked when it comes if the max is a 767 on the main apron?

Chatting with some of the other ramp lads our best guesstimate so far is East Apron though there has been murmour of the November ramp being repainted to fit it on there but thats come from hearing it from 'bob' who heard it from 'jim' who heard it from 'dave' who swears he was shown a drawing by Ops type chain of rumour with nothing substantiated being seen or heard from anyone important enough to be able to say officially.

It would be nice if it was on the main apron, It doesn't give the best impression havering to park aircraft on cargo ramps all the time, would be nice to see on the eastern apron although as I work on there at night time :)

787 Parking
 

Few years back we flew on the FCA 767 to Sanford and were bussed out to the east apron, just before departure the pilot told us "just waiting for the last cargo to be loaded" which I assumed was why it was parked out there.

Usually with the passenger aircraft carrying cargo onboard the aircraft are loaded on the main ramp, but the past few years the ramps been full since bmibaby left there's a few empty stands with noneed to use the eastern cargo apron for passenger flights

Monarch's schedule for MLA would currently suggest a 3rd aircraft as on a Tuesday there are now departures at

14:30 - MLA
14:45 - FAO
15:10 - ALC

It is possible to get 3 aircraft without any more routes. The Ibiza service which runs 5 times could move to a day time flight on aircraft 3 and the other 2 days it could fly to Malta. Lanzarote could fly 3 times and Tenerife 4 times to make up a second rotation for it but would be more pleased if they could add more routes to say Greece, Turkey and Cyprus!

@cozzy,

The 767 only gets parked on the East 'Cargo' Ramp if there isnt the space on the Central Ramp. The reason for this is that it arrives first thing in the morning, often before the EMA based aircraft have left on their first daily departures. Since bmibaby left I've not seen it parked on the East Ramp yet as there is more space on the Central (even more so since RyanAir sent 2 airframes to Alicante for the winter)

As the 767 takes ULD pallet based cargo/bag loading rather than 'loose bag' loading on the 737s they can easially load any cargo on the Central (in fact even UPS has at least once been required to do a full turnaround of a Cargo 767 on a Central Ramp stand when things went Pete Tong with aircraft going 'tech' on the East Ramp

I've seen the 767 a few times on the 40s, 42/43 I think (Im sure someone will correct me).

fr-