Barcelona - January 2007

Barcelona El Prat may not have as many longhaul flights as Madrid, but some nice specials might be seen as well. Iberia low-cost daughter Click and based Vueling add to the scene. Another plus is the growing presence of Russian carriers serving the capital of Catalonia.


Fokker 100 EC-IPV of GirJet is painted up as a new logo jet promoting the real estate company Grupo Taradellas as well as Barcelona soccer club Real Club Espanyol. She's leaving El Prat for the first time for a postioning flight to Palma.



One of a few heavies serving BCN is Aerolineas Argentinas. Contrary to the 747s you encounter in Madrid, Barcelona is about the only place besides of Rome where you might be able to get pictures of those rare Argentinian Airbus A340s. LV-ZPO started live with Cathay Pacific as VR-HMR and served with Philippine Airlines before ending up in Argentina.


Promoting Rias Baixas, Galicia, a tourism region in northwest Spain, one of 32 Boeing 737-800's in service with Air Europa, comes in to land on runway 07R. EC-IYI, a Boeing 737-883, originally built for SAS, went to Italian Air One in 2002 before joining Air Europe in 2004.


Bravo Air was founded in the Democratic Republic of Congo with the idea of connecting the country with the outside world. Something seems to have gone wrong, as the airliner has been flying around Europe for other carriers in need, in this case for Egypt Air. EC-JOZ has had a long history after having been delivered to Air New Zealand in 1988 as ZK-NBE. She saw service with carriers like Polynesian Airlines, Transbrasil, AeroContinente and shortlived SweFly.


Cargo carriers only recently started to drop in with Jade Cargo for sure one of the more exotic (and photogenic..) ones. The flight was delayed for a couple of hours which gave the opportunity to see this regular nighttime-visitor during perfect conditions leaving BCN for Brescia.



Bulgarian Air Charter operating a flight for Airlines 400 (now renamed to RedWings). LZ-ACQ rotates rather late and shows the new terminal under construction in the background. Tupolev Tu-154M LZ-LCQ spent a great time in the Far East for Baikal Airlines, China Nortwest and China Eastern and even flying for Iran Air Tours for a while before turning up in Europe.

Buenos Aires - "Summer" 2003/2004

Buenos Aires' s downtown airport, called Aeroparque, has always been very nice to take pictures. Low fences and an attractive background helped to get some unique pictures. In winter 2003/4 there were still some more airlines around - although it seems the Argentina airline scene gets back onto their feet.


Established in 1999, Aerovip operated a fleet of 6 Jetstream 32EP on local flights in the greater Buenos Aires area, but also to neighboring Uruguay. In 2004 the airlines suspended operations and was bought by LAN Airlines (Chile) together with also bankrupt Southern Winds to use their personnel to establish LAN Argentina. LV-ZOW is in use with newly founded Macair Jet which uses another ex Aerovip example as well.


Aerolineas Argentinas operated two planes in this special livery promoting the soccer club Boca Juniors who won the South America championship in 2003, a Boeing 747 and this Boeing 737-236 LV-ZSW bought from British Airways in 1999.


Another ex BA example, in this case LV-ZRE of Aerolineas Argentinas, is banking to the left to avoid overflying downtown B.A. - This B737 soldiers on today with Aloha Airlines of Hawaii as N828AL.

The BN 2A Islander LV-WFR belongs to Puerto Carmelo and is often seen at AEP. It's used for charter flights across the Rio de la Plata to Carmelo (Uruguay), only 60km away.

Biz Jets are not a rare sight at AEP, but this was my first and only BBJ I saw during several visits. XA-AEX looks pretty and was operating for Mexican Omniflys, which operates an Gulfstream IV today using the same registration after the BBJ was sold. It was registered as P4-KAZ but sports a rather bland color scheme nowadays.

Sabreliner 75A T-11 is the plane of the Commander of the Aerial Operations of the Fuerza Aerea Argentina and as been in service since 1975.