The airport is the through gate for many russian, english and scandinavian snow enthusiasts.
Especially the russians have specific arrival and departure days that center around the orthodox new year,
In the past this used to result in a number of nice Tu154's, Yak 42's and an occaisional IL86/96.
Sadly the Tups and Il's have now been banned for noise reasons.
Still if the weather is with you these arrival or departure days (departure is Jan 10 and 13 this year) can be big fun for the airplane spotter aswell.
Here is my impression of this years invasion:
The Friday had some nice visitors but the weather was typically mountan mist the whole day.
New kid on the block: Northwind was the first to arrive
followed in the afternoon by this Tatarstan 737 (ex bulgaria)
and Tulpar Yak42
Salzburg has a roof terrace and some good, almost white lights which make for excellent night shots (bring your tripod).
The whitebalance has not been changed in post processing for these pictures!
The weather forecast for Saturday the 3rd was very good, with 8 hours of sun predicted.
One of the first, this time in the early, still dark hours was again Northwind
A lot of the russians were scheduled between 06.00 and around 09.00 so you hope for some delays to catch them going out in daylight.
This was not to be this morning as a very heavy portion on ground mist rolled in around 07.45.
This lasted till around 09.30 which meant a number of them escaped without being photographed at all.
Then, finally the sun made its appearence, and the fun could begin
In the background you can see the spotters on the roof terrace
There must be a lucky guy out there, I think you have to speak russian to have a chance though.
You may get warm from these pictures but I can tell you it was freezing out there, and we were not the only ones dressed for the weather
The local airlines were also doing their bit
By 15.00 the daylight was starting to fade
The austrians were displaying a sense of humor, all airport services had titles with "air" incorporated, you have to understand german for this:
the airstairs were "ersteigAIR"
the de-icers were "enteisAIR"
the catering was "AIRfrischend"
and the ambulances were
We did not see police or firetrucks so no clue what they were called.
All in all a very nice Saturday in a cold but very relaxed atmosphere
rgds
EC
