After checking in my luggage and having about 90 minutes to kill (not wanting to spend time in the Duty free shops) I looked for the car park at Terminal 2 that is so popular with spotters at Manchester. Having found the spot I only found 3 people there. There were some good views of planes taking off and landing, as well of the gates at Terminal 2 and 3 (restricted views). Some photos have been posted elsewhere in this forum.
About 19:30 I went through into the departure lounge, security was thorough with whole body scan, hand luggage and shoe x-ray carried out. Only about 1 in 2 or 1 in 3 people were being chosen for the whole body scan. The whole process took about 5 minutes. I headed towards the gates but found that I was guided through a convoluted maze of Duty free shops before eventually finding my way to the information boards. Although i like having duty free shops at the airport, I find the whole idea of forcing people through shops unpleasant. I had a cup of tea and made my way to Gate 12. There were
Not interested in shopping I made my way to the gate taking a few photos along the way. Boarding commenced soon afterwards. The flight was about 95% full. Unfortunately, 39 B and 39C also taken. Luckily I found that the AV box in this 77-300ER (A6-ECZ) was below 39B and not 39A and i had some room to stretch my legs. We were greeted by the captain and pushed back at exactly 21:00 and headed behind the Etihad A330 towards the runway 23R.
We took a lot of runway to take off and climbed quickly to about 1000 ft before heading east, overflying Manchester city and then towards Norwich and the English Channel. Soon after crossing the channel the crew started preparing dinner. However, we encountered air turbulence that lasted about 90 minutes. So the dinner plans were delayed quite a bit. In the meanwhile I watched the movie 'Little Fockers' to pass my time as neighbour was a quite ex-military chap headed to Basra, Iraq.
Menus were handed out and I selected the Indonesian lamb option. However they ran out of it so I got the chicken with mushroom option. It was not bad, but not very exciting either. Sorry no pics.
Following dinner I tried to sleep but woke up to take another photo.
After about 6 hours after departing Manchester were were started making our decent into Dubai (total flight time 6:30)
Sunrise over the Persian Gulf
and passed over Sharjah before turning back to line up for the runway 20 minutes before scheduled arrival time.
Landing was smooth but we braked hard leave the runway. A number of Emirates jets were on the glide path into Dubai. Taxiing I saw the new terminal being built at Dubai... They don't seem to stop expanding.
Terminal 3 had about 5 A380's parked adjacent to each other (my window was not the best/clearest).
We docked at gate which was really at Terminal 2, and passengers had to walk over a kilometer back to Terminal 3 for security before we could enter the Duty free zone. I am not a fan of Dubai airport, too big, too much walking.. they could have travelators for the elderly, unfriendly/lazy security staff. My next flight to Karachi was at 09:50 and by now 45 minutes had already passed of my 3 hour wait.
Coming up Dubai -Karachi sector in Pakistan aviation photos section.
