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Male International Airport, Maldives Sat June 30th - Sat July 7th 2012 - Dave Anderson

Our first holiday of the year, a "non spotting" 25th wedding anniversary trip to the Maldives started with a first for me, a flight in the Airbus A380 with Emirates (A6-EDG). Having flown in nearly 50 different airliner types through the years I have to say this is now streets ahead of anything currently in the air (don't know about the 787 yet), with more legroom, head height and general space around you the seven hour flight to Dubai soon passes. The Emirates ICE in flight entertainment works as soon as you sit down with loads of new movies & tv channels to pick from, it also includes three cameras, nose (facing forward), tail (facing forward) giving great views when landing, and nose (looking down). They also allow you to use your mobile phone to both text and make calls when airborne for the duration of the flight, the phone must be on silent and at up to £1.99 per minute I don't think its going to cause any long periods of one sided conversations during flights, I tried it to call home while over Baghdad it worked fine and just as clear as any other call.

Arriving at Manchester 3 hours before the flight the use of the executive lounge above T1 is a great start to a journey, with views over the apron and runway in comfortable seats. The lounges can be booked from as little as £15 and includes all drinks both soft drinks, beers and spirits and a range of snacks that you just help yourself to, wifi is also included free useful to run plane plotter on the ipad.

Nothing out of the ordinary at Manchester to report, and our stop over at Dubai was only two hours so the only aircraft noted in the dark were those parked around us and only included a handful of Emirates jets, our aircraft for the next leg to Male' in the Maldives was Boeing 777-31H A6-EMW a rare visitor to the UK, only noted once at Manchester in Jan 2008 and not since in the North. A smooth flight lasting just under 4 hours saw us touch down on time at 0835, Male has a single runway with no taxiway so a full back track is required for each landing or takeoff. Movements are infrequent with regular daily flights with Emirates, Sri Lankan, Etihad and Qatar and weekly visitors from Aeroflot, Edelweiss, Singapore, Air India, China Southern etc. On landing you should see most of what is on the ramp including locally based  ATR-72's of Island Aviation Services and Dash 8's of Maldivian Airlines, the main hive of activity comes from the huge fleet of Twin Otter float planes that operate shuttle services to and from the islands, the seaplane terminal is on the opposite side of the airfield and you will only see these if you are flying on one. The journey to our Island was by boat so on arrival no Otters were logged. They are building a new terminal due to open in 2014 this is on the far side of the airport and looking at the future layout they had in the terminal it looks close to the seaplane docking area.

Male International Airport Saturday 30 June 2012 (0835)

Our Island (Meeru resort) was 45km North of Male, occasional flights could be seen coming & going and the odd twin otter flight transiting to distant Islands, I took a small Netbook with an Airnav radar box, I left running a few days and the logs below give an idea of some (most) of the movements in & out of Male during the week, they are in order of movement.

Male International Airport Sunday 1 July 2012

Also local mode S codes 05A03B, 05A03D, 05A04B, 05A012 unidentified so far along with a Libyan code 01A002

Male International Airport  Monday 2 July 2012

Also local mode S codes 05A042, 05A045 & 05A04E

Male International Airport Tuesday 3 July 2012

Also local mode S codes 05A051

Male International Airport Wednesday 4 July 2012

Male International Airport Thursday  5 July 2012

Male International Airport  Friday 6 July 2012

Male International Airport Saturday 7 July 2012

Our return flight was leaving Male at 10am back to Dubai, arriving at the airport by 0730 the following were noted before departure. The cafe in the departure lounge gives views out over the runway, part of the apron and distant views of the seaplane movements (not those at the seaplane terminal), setting up the Airnav when we arrived it was then easy enough to tie up all of the movements and a few can be read off after landing with bins. A number of the twin Otters are full ADSB making them easier to identify. Views from the departure gate (Gate 1 for us) were limited to a few hundred metres of runway and a couple of the stands, I'd leave it till the last moment before heading down there. A nice surprise while sat at the gate was the arrival of Expo Air's Ilyushin IL-18 4R-EXD, a nice plane but I had seen it before at Sharjah in 2005.

Based operator Mega Airllines Boeing 767 8Q-MEH taken while walking to the plane, seat "K" worked well with runway 36 in use.	8Q-IAS taken while walking to the plane	8Q-VAQ taken from the seat of the plane	8Q-IAP taken from the plane on push back	8Q-IAQ taken on push back	4R-EXD taken while taxying for departure to runway 36	N360LA parked just past the IL18 while taxying to runway (not seen from the terminal)
N410LM parked just past the IL18 while taxying to runway (not seen from the terminal)	Shot taken from the cafe area of the view, nice open air gallery but closed	View of the IL18 from Gate 1

 

8Q-VAQ	Aerospatiale ATR 42  512	606	Villa Air
A7-ADG	Airbus A320  232	2121	Qatar Airways
4R-ABN	Airbus A320  214	4869	Srilankan
8Q-MEH	Boeing  767  3Y0ER	26206	Mega Global Air Services
A6-EMT	Boeing  777  31H	32699	Emirates Airlines
N360LA	Bombardier Global Express  BD-700-1A	9087	Corporate - Hawaii based
8Q-IAS	de Havilland Canada DHC-8  Q-315	546	Maldivian Airlines
8Q-MAD	de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter	273	Maldivian Air Taxi
8Q-MAF	de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter	449	Maldivian Air Taxi
8Q-MAH	de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter	374	Maldivian Air Taxi
8Q-MAN	de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter	435	Maldivian Air Taxi
8Q-MAP	de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter	571	Maldivian Air Taxi
8Q-MAX	de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter	755	Maldivian Air Taxi
8Q-MAZ	de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter	774	Maldivian Air Taxi
8Q-MBB	de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter	659	Maldivian Air Taxi
8Q-MBE	de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter	561	Maldivian Air Taxi
8Q-OEQ	de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter	044	Maldivian Air Taxi
8Q-TMB	de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter	587	Trans Maldivian Airways
8Q-TME	de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter	798	Trans Maldivian Airways
8Q-TMI	de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter	754	Trans Maldivian Airways
8Q-TMK	de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter	751	Trans Maldivian Airways
8Q-TMP	de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter	652	Trans Maldivian Airways
8Q-TMQ	de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter	753	Trans Maldivian Airways
8Q-TMU	de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter	467	Trans Maldivian Airways
8Q-TMV	de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter	625	Trans Maldivian Airways
8Q-AMD	de Havilland Canada DHC-8  202	429	Island Aviation Services
8Q-IAP	de Havilland Canada DHC-8  Q-311B	491	Island Aviation Services
N410LM	Gulfstream G5	578	Lockheed-Martin Aeronautics Company
4R-EXD	Ilyushin IL-18  GrM	187009802	Expo Aviation

Our trip back to Dubai was on time, good job as we only had just over an hour at Dubai to connect onto the Manchester flight, again a now rare 777-31H A6-EMT that hasn't been noted over the North since September 2008. On approach to Dubai our flight took us over Sharjah airport with a great view of the aprons, busy but very much quieter than the last time I was there. Logging was reduced to both arrival and departure, lots of biz on the far side of the airport but non identified as well as a number of freight aircraft, all western types. The photo's were taken as we taxied in.

9K-AMB	Airbus A300  B4-605R	694	Kuwait Airways
AP-EDB	Airbus A319  111	3364	Airblue
E7-SKA	Airbus A320  231	428	Nasair Eritrea
4K-AZ79	Airbus A320  214	2865	Azerbaijan Airlines
A9C-AI	Airbus A320  214	4255	Gulf Air
A7-AHS	Airbus A320  232	5010	Qatar Airways
A9C-KH	Airbus A330  243	529	Gulf Air
B-6077	Airbus A330  243	818	China Southern Airlines
A6-EDR	Airbus A380  861	83	Emirates Airlines
A6-EDU	Airbus A380  861	98	Emirates Airlines
A6-ESE	Boeing  737  46J	27213	RAK Airways
SU-MWE	Boeing  737  8Q8	30040	Shaheen Air International	(Midwest scheme)
VT-SGZ	Boeing  737  8GJ	39423	SpiceJet
A6-FDJ	Boeing  737  8KN	40237	FlyDubai
A6-FDK	Boeing  737  8KN	40238	FlyDubai
A6-EBF	Boeing  777  31HER	32708	Emirates Airlines
A6-ECA	Boeing  777  36NER	32794	Emirates Airlines
SU-GDR	Boeing  777  36NER	38291	Egypt Air
N594FE	McDonnell-Douglas MD-11  F	48552	Federal Express
EP-LCB	Fokker  50	20274	Kish Air
?????	Boeing  767F		ATI  (Full scheme)

Our flight home was on board 777-31HER  A6-EBF arriving on time on stand at 1915, after picking up the bags and a coach to the car park we were home in Teesside by 2125 - is Manchester that much further than Newcastle (which I often find is useless at bringing the bags in quickly and the coach to the car park waits until its full!)????

Roll on next holiday - Spain next week!!

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