Changi

I’ve finally published the last of 174 photos I took in Singapore in April. The last batch are 38 taken at Changi Airport on our last day. The Airport is billed as a “destination” in its own right and they’re not wrong. We got there around lunch time for a 10:40pm flight. There was shopping, eating, the fantastic “Jewel” to look at, and of course, plane spotting!

I should note that the plane spotting was not as good as I had hoped. All of the photos you will see here were taken from the Viewing Lounge in Terminal 1, which overlooks a major taxiway between the two main runways. The Viewing Lounges in Terminals 2 & 3 look out on those runways but are utterly unsuitable for photography as the lounges are set well back from the outer terminal windows and thus there are window frames that cannot be avoided.

There are 38 photos in the full set on Flickr, and I’ve included a representative ten here. Note that despite the gloomy afternoon, heat haze is a common issue and some of my shots have quite severe issues. It comes with the territory when the daytime temperature is 33ºC and the nighttime still 26ºC.

First up, the Airbus stable, almost a complete set! Here is one of several A319s I saw, this one being HS-PPA operated by Bangkok Air.

Next up is A320neo, 9V-TNB, operated by Scoot — Singapore Airlines’ low-cost subsidiary.

Moving up a size class is A330-300, 9V-SSI, operated by Singapore Airlines.

I was really hoping to see a bunch of A350s and was not disappointed as this Qatar Airways example, A350-900 A7-ANG, was parked near the Viewing Lounge most of the time I was there.

And the biggest of them all (and quite plentiful here), this A380, G-XLEL, shows what I could manage for those aircraft landing that did not use the nearby taxiway for my convenience.

Moving over to Boeing now, we start with 737-800, B-207W of Hebei Airlines.

Once the most numerous type, 747s were few and far between. In fact, I think I only saw freighters, such as this 747-400F of Singapore Airlines Cargo, 9V-SFI.

Similarly rare, and again only seen in freighter form is this unidentified 767-300F of UPS.

This 777-300ER, F-GZNA of Air France represent by far the most numerous type at Changi. I saw four Singapore Airlines examples on the taxiway, along with a myriad of other airlines’.

Last, but not least, a 787-10, 9V-SCA of Singapore Airlines. The 787’s (mostly of the -9 variety) were about the third most numerous type behind the A350s.

That concludes the taster. Check out the full set over on Flickr.