Sunday November 6, 2022 turned out to be an absolutely splendid and beautiful day at The Rock of Gibraltar, overlooking my Spanish city of La Linea de la Concepcion. The weather was absolutely perfect at 24℃, 75℉, with calm winds, low humidity, and the perfect landing conditions for the flights coming in that day.
For this day the early flights were scheduled arrivals from Manchester, Bristol, London Gatwick and an Embraer serviced by NetJets coming in from Madrid. The Manchester flight, EZY1963 was supposed to land at 10:20 AM, however, experienced a delay prior to take off from there and it caused the flight to land scheduled at the same time as the Bristol incoming flight at 10:50 AM.
Although not great news for the passengers coming in, and those scheduled to go out, the half hour delay meant that all 4 of the morning flights would come in stacked together for landing. And that's exactly what happened.
Although the Manchester flight had departed prior to the Bristol flight, the Bristol flight won out the race and made it to Gibraltar Airport first. As I watched on FlightRadar24 I noticed the Bristol flight coming in just minutes before the Manchester flight as they were both over Cordoba, Spain at the time.
The delay in the flight gave me plenty of time to bike over to Gibraltar and scale up The Rock to get to one of the best viewing points that we have overlooking the airport, The Great Siege Tunnels platform. I have often encountered a monkey or two here causing mischief, but totday they stayed at bay.
With minutes to spare, I made it up to the lookout terrace just as EZY6299 was coming in from Bristol. It was a beautifully spectacular day with great visibility. All 4 planes this morning came gliding in as if on a tuft of cloud and air. The smoothness of each touchdown to the runway was noted, as sometimes the landing can be quite harsh and dramatic at Gibraltar Airport.
All four flights came in one after the other. The traffic on the roadway had to be stopped from at least 10:45 AM to 11:08 AM. The Bristol Flight landed at 10:48 AM, which meant the roadway was closed 2-3 minutes prior, then about 2 minutes taxi off the runway, which gave about 2 minutes for the Manchester flight to land. About a 2 minute taxi from the end of the runway to the terminal gave this easyJet flight just enough time to get off the runway to allow NetJets Embraer Phenom 300 to come in for landing at 10:57 AM. While this little guy can speed down the runway quite quickly, it did not allow enough time for roadway to be opened between the landing of easyJet's LGW flight.
I'm sure the delay on the ground and the roadway was not appreciated by all those left waiting to cross the airport runway. But the planes all came in for landing within minutes of each other and the roadway takes more than two minutes to open and shut down again. In this case, it didn't make any sense for the roadway to open for one or two minutes in between landings, logistically there was not enough time.
What did happen though, was the air traffic control tower must have done an amazing job guiding these planes in and putting them all on the exact right timing to get them all landed back-to-back. Planes landing this quickly and in a row like this, is not a usual occurrence.
Usually, the Manchester flight would have landed, giving at least a half hour lead time for the Bristol flight to land followed by London Gatwick. The gaps in landings, allow the roadway enough time to open and allow car and foot traffic to cross the airport runway. However, today, all 4 flights came in minutes apart, which was great for plane spotting for me, but maybe not so much to the traffic waiting to cross the runway on the ground.
As mentioned in my latest article, The Winter Schedule has Commenced.
This is making the landings and departures each day at Gibraltar Airport more spread out and less frequent. Today, however, with 4 landings in a row, it was a nice change. I'm hoping that Sunday's will continue to offer some more flights stacked for landings. I was able to capture the departure of the 3 easyJet flights, but the Embraer took off as I was walking down Castle Steps, so I only got to hear him shoot off into the Gibraltar Sky! These videos will be released on Ministry of flight on YouTube coming soon!
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Because Gibraltar Airport is so small, the slightest change in the flight schedules make a big difference. I really don't think there are many airports in the world you have the opportunity to overlook the runway from 700 feet above, while having your feet firmly planted on the ground. Gibraltar Airport is amazing to experience and I appreciate it more and more everyday!
This is the video of the Bristol flight from that day landing and departing at Gibraltar.
Flying to Gibraltar Airport or have questions? Leave a comment in our latest YouTube video and we will get back to you!
Where do you find out about scheduled arrivals of private planes? I only get the commercial ones from the gib airport website.
asking to be able to better plan trips to spain to avoid runway closure