Passing Through Guangzhou Pt2: Traffic at CAN

In part 1 I looked at the layout and spotting opportunities at Guangzhou Baiyun. In part 2 I'll focus on the traffic I saw in the 3 hours early morning that I was there on December 16, 2018 and the 7 hours evening I was there on Thursday 3, January 2019. Paradoxically the first shorter period was far more productive than the latter, partly due to a very favourable taxi to the runway.

As stated in the first part all the spotting, except that from the aircraft window, was undertaken from the international half of T2, which is only about 1/6th of the terminal real estate available at the airport and offers very restricted views of about 1/12th of terminal 1. Nonetheless with visibility of two active runways and many taxiways there was a sprinkling of more traffic than just China Southern.

Below: There is a lot of China Southern about. Just as well it is such a nice livery. This shot was just after dawn so the external lighting was still on.

I have put all 95 good photos of this trip in the following FlickR album so they can be viewed at better resolutions:

Nonetheless I'll call out some of the more interesting subjects separately here.

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China Southern Airlines

Guangzhou is their main hub so you can expect to see lots of CZ and every aircraft type in their fleet which is quite diverse from Embraer 190s to Airbus A380s.

Below: There were multiple A380s present both times I was at the airport. 

Here's a list of the CZ Airbus and Embraer fleet I saw on Dec 16th:

And a list of the Boeing fleet I saw:

A330s were very common at the international gates.

Airbus A320s and Boeing 737-800s were also common at the international side operating shorter routes like Phnom Penh:

It was pleasing to see some of CZ's new 737 MAX-8s in service on international duties:

The smaller CZ fleet members and the A321s were far less common from where I was sited as they are used mainly for domestic traffic:

Takeoff shots were possible but as you can see the weather was pretty murky:

Several new A321NEOs were parked at remote gates and this one taxied past:

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Other Chinese Majors

CAN is a major hub for Shenzhen Airlines whilst both China Eastern and Hainan Airlines have significant presences as well. None of these are easy to see from T2 although they did infrequently use the runways in front of it. Poor light made catching the registrations and taking photos difficult.

Here's what I saw from the fleets of the other 5 majors at the airport given my viewing was limited.

Sichuan Airlines actually had a few flights operating from the international T2 area, which made photos easier of them:

I even saw one of their new A321NEOs:

Shenzhen Airlines and Air China never taxied past T2 and were really difficult to catch taking off. Fortunately the long taxi past T1 later on helped me catch some of their fleet in action. More of that later.

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Smaller Chinese Airlines

There was a good diversity of smaller airlines at CAN, although getting photos from T2 was often very challenging. Given more time I'm sure most would taxi past, including a decent sprinkling of freighters.

Below: I didn't realise there were still aircraft wearing China Xinhua titles:

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International Traffic

There wasn't a lot of foreign registered traffic and what there was was surprisingly African, which at least made it more interesting. Air Madagascar was an obvious highlight.

Below is the complete foreign registry of the entire 10 hours plus over the two dates I was there. There were other foreign airliners present (All Nippon, Asiana etc) but not at T2 or within reg spotting range. The FedEx ramp for example was way too far away to take regs.

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The Long Taxi

I have to admit the highlight of my trip was the long taxi our 787-8 took around the domestic side of T2 and the left side of T1 to runway 01 for take-off. Even though I was on the right of the aircraft and so not facing the terminals the runway and taxiways were super busy and I got some great shots through the window of interesting domestic traffic. The yellow line below indicates the taxi route:

I even got a peak at the cargo ramp with two Longhao Airlines 737 freighters present:

I even caught a couple of special schemes:

And some other smaller Chinese airlines:

Not that Xiamen is particularly small:

And another MAX-8:

My parting shots where a decent overview of Terminal 2 after lift-off showing the domestic side of it closest to camera:

I hope you enjoyed this quick look at Guangzhou. Remember the folder at FlickR contains more photos (95) than I've published here and all can be viewed at full size.