Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there! With the way school and work has been going in Salem the last couple weeks, things have been busy and I haven't had much time for myself to really do the things I want to do, until today... This weekend is the first time in a while I actually have some time so I decided to spend the morning well-before all the Mother's Day celebration this afternoon planespotting up in Portland (Actually, Mother's Day is pretty low-key for us since my mother likes to keep things simple and nothing extravagant). There were a few things I wanted to go photograph after consulting the latest trends I've been seeing on FlightAware as well as some of the aviation-related news I've been hearing.
It's been about two months since I was last at PDX doing some spotting and a few new things have happened since then; the most notable being PenAir starting up service to three new destinations (North Bend/Coos Bay, OR, Redding, CA, and Arcata/Eureka, CA), Alaska Airlines updating their brand with a makeover (which I got to see for the first time today, by the way!) as well as it's recent announcement to acquire San Francisco-based Virgin America. I also went mainly because I wanted to brush up on my photography in order to get ready for few new things coming to PDX really soon!
For starters, Icelandair is supposed to resume their spring/summer seasonal service to Reykjavik this week after the winter hiatus. Condor is to follow suit in the following week. Also later this month, Air Canada (I'm talking about mainline service! Not the regional Jazz Air stuff we've been seeing!) is resuming seasonal flights out of PDX to Toronto-Pearson International utilizing Embraer E-190s on starting May 27 after being away for a few years. I look forward to this because I have yet to photograph an E-190.
And there are two things to look forward to next June: The first being American Airlines beginning service from PDX to Los Angeles International via it's regional brand American Eagle operated by Compass Airlines utlizing Embraer E-175s starting June 2. Compass-operated American Eagle flights have already been in service down in Eugene but now it's expanding up into Portland as well as Seattle. For the past three years, Compass Airlines has already been operating flights between PDX and LAX with E-175s on the behalf of Delta Air Lines' Delta Connection brand. However, Delta mixed in mainline service on this route utilizing Boeing 717s and ended up deciding to switch this route over to full-mainline in it's operations. Routes between Portland and the several Los Angeles-area airports is a very lucrative market on the West Coast and is among one of the busiest with almost every major mainline U.S. airline competing for a piece of the market.
And the second thing to look forward to is starting on June 9, with Minneapolis/St. Paul-based low-cost carrier Sun Country Airlines beginning daily flights between PDX and their hub Minneapolis-St. Paul International via a mix between Boeing 737-800s and 700s. PDX has seen Sun Country fly in and out frequently in the past but those were mainly charter flights. Before announcing Portland as their newest West Coast destination, Sun Country's other West Coast offerings include Seattle, Anchorage, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Palm Springs, and San Diego. I'm looking forward to this as well because Sun Country, like Allegiant, is one of those more elusive airlines that are hard to photograph because they serve in only a handful of destinations.
Well, enough of the announcements and let's get to the photos I took today! Here's the link:
Portland (PDX) 21
Photo preview and highlights:
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| Horizon Air Bombardier DHC-8-401 Q400 (N418QX) departing 28L as QXE2558 for Spokane. |
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| SkyWest Airlines (d/b/a Alaska Airlines) Bombardier CL-600-2C10 CRJ-700 (N217AG) arriving on 28L as SKW3465 from Ontario, CA. |
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| SkyWest Airlines (d/b/a Alaska Airlines) Embraer ERJ-170-200LR E-175LR (N174SY) departing on 28L as SKW3384 for Minneapolis/St. Paul. |
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| Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-890 (N566AS) in the new livery departing 28L as ASA580 for Santa Ana-John Wayne. My first time photographing the new Alaska Airlines brand! This new brand was unveiled on January 25, 2016 and while the airline did do a subtle revision late last year, this is Alaska Airlines' first major new livery and logo change in 25 years. In my opinion, the new logo and livery seems to suggest the airline's support for the NFL team, the Seattle Seahawks! |
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| SkyWest Airlines (d/b/a Alaska Airlines) Bombardier CL-600-2C10 CRJ-700 (N216AG) arriving on 28L as SKW3449 from Fresno. |
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| Horizon Air Bombardier DHC-8-401 Q400 (N413QX) just after push-back getting ready to depart for Spokane. |
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| Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-990/ER (N459AS) departing 28L as ASA408 for San Jose International. |
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| Frontier Airlines Airbus A319-111 (N934FR) "Larry Jr., the Lynx Cub" just after rotation on 28R as FFT788 bound for Denver. Spotted the previous livery again and gotta love Frontier's different animal tails! On a side note, Frontier just recently started service between PDX and Chicago O' Hare and announced new service from Portland to Phoenix-Sky Harbor starting on June 30. |
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| Delta Air Lines McDonnell Douglas MD-90-30 (N942DN) rotating on 28R as DAL2163 for Minneapolis/St. Paul. Former JA002D of Japan Air System-JAS and then to Japan Airlines-JAL before acquisition by Delta. Delta Air Lines is now the sole-operator of the McDonnell Douglas MD-90 type in the world. |
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| Flight Options Embraer EMB-505 Phenom 300 (N328FL) after departure from 28R as OPT328 for Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Airport in Cleveland, OH. |
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| Delta Air Lines Boeing 737-832 (N3749D) after arrival on 28R as DAL2413 from Seattle. |
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| Delta Air Lines Boeing 767-332 (N130DL) arriving on 28R as DAL510 from Atlanta. These non-ER 767s are used by Delta primarily for domestic trans-continental flights often on round-trips to and from major hubs such as Atlanta and Detroit. |
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| Delta Air Lines Airbus A320-212 (N365NW) arriving on 28R as DAL623 from Salt Lake City. |
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| Royal Canadian Air Force Raytheon CT-156 Harvard II (156114) after departure from 28R with callsign APACHE164. |
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| Virgin America Airbus A320-214 (N636VA) "airplane 2.0" taxiing for departure as VRD801 for San Francisco. It has been several years for me since I last photographed Virgin America; when they first started serving PDX, they offered flights to both Los Angeles and San Francisco. However, the airline dropped the LAX flights. The Alaska Air Group announced on April 4, 2016 that it will acquire Virgin America and merge the two airlines. In light of this recent announcement, better photograph as many Virgin America planes while they're still around! |
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| Here's another new sight at PDX: Jazz Air (d/b/a Air Canada Express) Bombardier DHC-8-402 Q400 (C-GGOY) pulling up to the gate after arrival from Calgary as JZA8315. I must admit, it is strange seeing a Dash 8 Q400 in Portland from a different airline other than Horizon! But this new sight is a welcome one in my book! The last time I saw the daily Calgary flight back in February, the equipment was a CRJ-705 but as of May 1, the equipment was switched over to a Q400. It's kind of nice to see Air Canada/Jazz Air mixing it up a little. This airframe is also Jazz Air's very first Q400 in their fleet. |
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| VRD801 airborne after departure via 28R for San Francisco. |
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| Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-890 (N536AS) arriving on 28L as ASA627 from Sin City (Las Vegas). |
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| American Airlines Boeing 737-823 (N901AN) arriving on 28L as AAL1500 from Chicago O' Hare. It's nice to see that there are still some old American "chrome" colors are still out there. Now if American would just send some of their retrojets my way... |
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| United Airlines Airbus A319-131 (N831UA) clearing the active after arrival on 28R as UAL550 from San Francisco. |
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| Beechcraft B200 Super King Air (N6683W) airborne after departure from 28R. According to FlightAware, the destination for this twin-turboprop was Gnoss Field in Novato, CA. |
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| Compass Airlines (d/b/a Delta Connection) Embraer ERJ-170-200LR E-175LR (N610CZ) taxiing for departure to Los Angeles as CPZ5724. This might be my last time seeing this aircraft type in these colors operating between Portland and Los Angeles... |
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| TWO MD-90s in one day! Delta Air Lines McDonnell Douglas MD-90-30 (N934DN) clearing the active after arrival on 28R as DAL1073 from Minneapolis/St. Paul. It seems that Delta MD-90s flown into PDX are used exclusively for the Minneapolis route. |
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| CPZ5724 airborne after departure from 28R for LAX. |
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| Delta Air Lines Airbus A330-323 (N803NW) arriving on 28R as DAL179 from Amsterdam. Delta brought their A330s back to PDX for the Amsterdam flights in late-March. |
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| C-GGOY at engine start-up getting ready for the return flight to Calgary as JZA8316. |
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| JZA8316 taxiing out while showing off that classic red maple leaf that the Air Canada brand is known for. I can't wait to photograph Air Canada mainline when they resume the flights to Toronto! |
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| United Airlines Airbus A319-131 (N807UA) clearing 28R after arrival as UAL276 from Denver. |
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| JZA8316 airborne after departing 28R for the return-trip to Calgary. |
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| United Airlines Boeing 737-724 (N17730) taxiing out for departure as UAL1953 for Houston. Maybe it's the livery, maybe it's the split-scimitar winglets, maybe it's this angle, but I never realized how short and stubby the Boeing 737-700 looked (They should call it the "Stubby-Thrity-Seven!"). |
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| United Airlines Boeing 737-924/ER (N75433) rotating on 28R as UAL353 for San Francisco. |
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| Dassault Falcon 900 (N900BK) taxiing to the FBO after arriving on 28R from Louisville. |
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| UAL1953 departing on 28R for Houston. |
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| Peninsula Airways (PenAir) Saab 340B (N677PA) arriving on 28L as PEN182 from Arcata/Eureka. Formerly with French carrier Regional Airlines as F-GMVV and then to Macair as VH-XDZ before acquisition by PenAir. |
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| Horizon Air Bombardier DHC-8-402 Q400 (N405QX) rotating on 28L as QXE2633 for Sacramento. |
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| Horizon Air Bombardier DHC-8-402 Q400 (N440QX) in the Oregon State University Beavers livery arriving on 28L as QXE2029 from Spokane. |
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| PEN182 pulling up to the gate. The last time I photographed PenAir, they were operating from the north side of the airport in terminal Concourse E, where they first started. Since late-March they relocated to Concourse B to be next to code share partner Alaska Airlines. |
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| Horizon Air Bombardier DHC-8-402 Q400 (N431QX) departing 28L as QXE2066 for Boise. |
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| QXE2029 taxiing to the gate. |
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| Horizon Air Bombardier DHC-8-402 Q400 (N411QX) departing on 28R as QXE2081 for Eugene. |
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| Delta Air Lines Boeing 767-332/ER (N185DN) taxiing for departure to Tokyo-Narita as DAL623. |
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| Gulfstream Aerospace (G-VI) G650 (N673HA) taxiing to the FBO after arrival on 28R. |
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| Horizon Air Bombardier DHC-8-401 Q400 (N409QX) taxiing to the gate after arrival from Medford QXE2098. |
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| Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-7H4 (N297WN) arriving on 28L as SWA3884 from Las Vegas. |
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| DAL623 departing 28L for Tokyo. |
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| SkyWest Airlines (d/b/a Alaska Airlines) Bombardier CL-600-2C10 CRJ-700 (N223AG) departing 28L on a re-positioning flight to Seattle. |
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| Peninsula Airways (PenAir) Saab 340B/Plus (N410XJ) arriving on 28L as PEN192 from North Bend/Coos Bay. Airframe is formerly with Mesaba Airlines in Northwest Airlink colours. |
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| Horizon Air Bombardier DHC-8-402 Q400 (N430QX) airborne after departure from 28R as QXE2414 for Vancouver, British Columbia. |
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| PEN192 pulling up to the gate. |
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| JetBlue Airways Airbus A320-232 (N648JB) "That's What I Like About Blue" arriving on 28L as JBU1522 from Long Beach-Daugherty Field. |
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| Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-7H4 (N246LV) taxiing for departure for Oakland as SWA2040. |
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| Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-76N (N7717D) arriving on 28L as SWA3541 from Oakland. Airframe is former AirTran Airways N276AT. |
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| SWA2040 departing for Oakland on 28L. |
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| Cessna 750 Citation X (N777CX) taxiing to the FBO after arriving on 28R from Waterbury-Oxford Airport, CT. |
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| N130DL just airborne after rotation from 28R as DAL510 for the return-trip to Atlanta. |
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