Tom the Tenor
26th May 2002, 13:00
Yesterday, Saturday, 25th May was an amazing day at Cork Airport and it is fitting to record a post about the early morning departures of nearly 3,000 rugby supporters to Cardiff for the final of the Heineken Rugby Cup between Munster and Leicester at the Millenium Stadium.
At the terminal approaches there were signs instructing some fans to head to the 'North Terminal' for checking in and this simply depended on what travel agent they had booked their package. The 'North Terminal' is in fact the EMC hangar or the former Irish Helicopters hangar and outside it was a Air Luxor L1011-500 parked facing west. There has lately been completed a substantial ramp extension at Cork Airport and it was not until later that this correspondent noticed the Transjet B747-200 parked more to the north of the hangar - imagine not noticing a 747 at Cork!
Inside the main terminal building the place was heaving as you British would say! There was a temporary departure gate in place at what is normally the arrivals area. My boss, Joe,who had given me a lift to the airport stood in line with his pal at check-in for their GO charter to Bristol and once that was done Joe gave me a quick lesson on the use of his camcorder with which I was going to record the morning's movements for posterity. Bit of a laugh really - not very technically minded am I!
Upstairs the Munster team's sponsors were giving out nice free caps in the team's colours along with those funny hands things you stick your wrist into and then wave about. A good laugh. Joe and his pal, Seamus went all out on a big fry-up but my call to arms then came as the GO 061 changed to Cork Tower for landing and quickly got myself to a spot at the window of 'Liberty Stream Balcony' just in time to again figure out the workings of the camcorder as the GO 737 touched down.
Shortly after my pals had to board the GO flight and to the north of us the Air Luxor TriStar had been started or pushed and was now locked up facing north and created a bit of a stir among the hundreds watching with white plumes of smoke coming from her rear-end! It was then that the scale of Cork's ramp extension became clear as the Transjet 747 got her nose in front and taxiied to runway 17 ahead of the TriStar for take off. Everyone was up for the 747's take off, everyone from the small gathering of Spotters, the cafe workers, the Airport Manager, Duty Officers, The Rt Hon, The Lord Mayor of Cork, Tom O'Driscoll and the many hundreds of rugby supporters mostly attired in the scarlet Munster jerseys and free caps. This was a lovely sight.
Later there was another remarkable scene at Cork with 747s. One Air Atlanta aircraft was on final to 17 as another one was locking up and on video I have the one aircraft in the foreground and the other in the background on short finals and then on landing thre was, of course, the unimaginable, two Boeing 747-200s on the ground together passing near to each other, one taxiing out and the other coming in to park. Again, what a site!
There were a good number of other rugby charters as well like the above mentioned GO flight. It was great to see GO in Cork before they lose their identity to Easyjet. A Ryanair 737-800 as well supporting Munster flags out the Captain and FO's windows. What was funny too was when the FO from the scheduled EI031 from Dublin came to the terminal to buy newspapers and returned to the aircraft with some Munster caps and hands and later you could make out the Captain wearing his red cap as the 737 started up again for Dublin. There were two European Air Charter flights with 737-200 and Air Wales with Do-228.
Yesterday's pride of place remains for me with the 747 movements and all the entertainment, conviviality and joy their movements brought to the morning among the many different groups of people watching. A sad coincidence noted later was one of the 747s was landing at Cork just around the time another 747 was being lost between Taiwan and Hong Kong and all the sadness and despair being now wrought to the crew, passengers and families connected with the China Airlines flight. Sad. May the Rest in Peace.
At the terminal approaches there were signs instructing some fans to head to the 'North Terminal' for checking in and this simply depended on what travel agent they had booked their package. The 'North Terminal' is in fact the EMC hangar or the former Irish Helicopters hangar and outside it was a Air Luxor L1011-500 parked facing west. There has lately been completed a substantial ramp extension at Cork Airport and it was not until later that this correspondent noticed the Transjet B747-200 parked more to the north of the hangar - imagine not noticing a 747 at Cork!
Inside the main terminal building the place was heaving as you British would say! There was a temporary departure gate in place at what is normally the arrivals area. My boss, Joe,who had given me a lift to the airport stood in line with his pal at check-in for their GO charter to Bristol and once that was done Joe gave me a quick lesson on the use of his camcorder with which I was going to record the morning's movements for posterity. Bit of a laugh really - not very technically minded am I!
Upstairs the Munster team's sponsors were giving out nice free caps in the team's colours along with those funny hands things you stick your wrist into and then wave about. A good laugh. Joe and his pal, Seamus went all out on a big fry-up but my call to arms then came as the GO 061 changed to Cork Tower for landing and quickly got myself to a spot at the window of 'Liberty Stream Balcony' just in time to again figure out the workings of the camcorder as the GO 737 touched down.
Shortly after my pals had to board the GO flight and to the north of us the Air Luxor TriStar had been started or pushed and was now locked up facing north and created a bit of a stir among the hundreds watching with white plumes of smoke coming from her rear-end! It was then that the scale of Cork's ramp extension became clear as the Transjet 747 got her nose in front and taxiied to runway 17 ahead of the TriStar for take off. Everyone was up for the 747's take off, everyone from the small gathering of Spotters, the cafe workers, the Airport Manager, Duty Officers, The Rt Hon, The Lord Mayor of Cork, Tom O'Driscoll and the many hundreds of rugby supporters mostly attired in the scarlet Munster jerseys and free caps. This was a lovely sight.
Later there was another remarkable scene at Cork with 747s. One Air Atlanta aircraft was on final to 17 as another one was locking up and on video I have the one aircraft in the foreground and the other in the background on short finals and then on landing thre was, of course, the unimaginable, two Boeing 747-200s on the ground together passing near to each other, one taxiing out and the other coming in to park. Again, what a site!
There were a good number of other rugby charters as well like the above mentioned GO flight. It was great to see GO in Cork before they lose their identity to Easyjet. A Ryanair 737-800 as well supporting Munster flags out the Captain and FO's windows. What was funny too was when the FO from the scheduled EI031 from Dublin came to the terminal to buy newspapers and returned to the aircraft with some Munster caps and hands and later you could make out the Captain wearing his red cap as the 737 started up again for Dublin. There were two European Air Charter flights with 737-200 and Air Wales with Do-228.
Yesterday's pride of place remains for me with the 747 movements and all the entertainment, conviviality and joy their movements brought to the morning among the many different groups of people watching. A sad coincidence noted later was one of the 747s was landing at Cork just around the time another 747 was being lost between Taiwan and Hong Kong and all the sadness and despair being now wrought to the crew, passengers and families connected with the China Airlines flight. Sad. May the Rest in Peace.