Southwest Airlines - new photos!

 Since I don't follow politics as closely as I used to, I filled my time with photographing airplanes.  Really nerdy, right?  I don't care. I love airplanes.  I always wanted to be a commercial airline pilot.  But this is as close as I got.

Back in 1987 when I was in the 10th grade, we had a lesson in career planning. I investigated being an airline pilot.  There were 2 paths to becoming an airline pilot - join the military and learn to fly there with either the Air Force, the Navy, the Marines, or the Army (did you know that the Army has more pilots than the Navy???), or pay for your own pilot's license, which in 1987 was over $10,000.  Granted, that was about 2 years worth of tuition at the time, but the career path was difficult.  Entry-level pilots were paid like $19,000.  I could make more than that at Burger King, and no one's life was in my hands.  So I want to college and got a degree in Business and Finance.  Now I have a camera and photograph those planes.

Fortunately, the airlines got smart as there has been a dearth in military pilots, and suddenly after Covid subsided, though only moderately, there is now a pilot shortage.  So airlines have created their own airlines schools.

BWI (Baltimore Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport) is dominated by Southwest Airlines.  Southwest doesn't use a "Hub-and-Spoke" system like Delta, United, and American, but Southwest's domination at BWI makes it a fortress.  That's a real airline term.  

Since I have LOTS of photos and opportunities to photograph Southwest planes, I have made it my objective to photograph EVERY Southwest plane.  I'm up to 580 unique planes.  Southwest, according to planespotters.net, has 707 active planes, with 37 parked, for a total of 744 planes.  So, good math would indicate that I have about 160 to go.  However, I have photographed multiple planes that have been retired or sold, so I probably have closer to 170-180 planes to photograph.

Here are 4 of them.

Lisbon Volunteer Fire Department

I read recently on Facebook that Lisbon Volunteer Fire Department in Woodbine, Maryland was donating Engine Tanker 44 to Hindman Volunteer Fire Department in Hindman, Kentucky.  I knew that I needed to get to the station to snap some photographs before she was gone.

If you follow the news, you know that Kentucky has been especially hard-hit with flooding this summer. Hindman VFD lost all of their equipment due to the flooding.  Lisbon VFD, on the other hand, was planning to to acquire a new engine tanker.  With Howard County having a reserve tanker, Lisbon made the thoughtful decision to donate the old tanker to those in need.  The new tanker is on order and the mismatched red tanker will fill-in until it arrives.

Engine Tanker 44 is a 1992 Pierce Lance. 

Fortunately (tongue-in-cheek), Blogspotter doesn't allow you to upload multiple photos at the same time and for each photo it defaults back to the main directory so that you have to navigate to the root directory for the photo multiple times.  Idiot.

Condor Wraps Up BWI Flights for the Summer

This upcoming week wraps up the 3x weekly flights from Condor Airlines at BWI.  

The German-based airline has been flying Boeing 767s from Frankfurt (FRA) to BWI three times per week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.

Condor Airlines is now wholly-owned by an investment firm after previously having a significant ownership by Lufthansa and Thomas Cook.  Thomas Group went defunct in 2019.  It was reported that Poland's LOT Airlines would purchase Condor Airlines, but that deal didn't materialize.

According to Condor's website, it appears that the airlines will restart service again to BWI in May of 2023 with flights on Mondays and Saturdays, then moving to a Monday / Thursday / Saturday schedule in June of 2023.  But as we know, everything is subject to change.

It was fun seeing Condor at BWI this summer.  Maybe one day I'll even fly on that
airline. 

Lufthansa - New 787

This week Lufthansa took delivery of it's first Boeing 787.  This model is a 787-9.  If you're a U.S. planespotter like myself, it may be a while before you spot this plane.  According to Simply Flying, Lufthansa will be flying this plane on the shuttle route between Frankfurt (FRA) and its southern neighbor, Munich (MUC).  This is an uninspiring 35 minute flight, as I observed with the most recent flight which was performed by an Embraer ERJ-195-E2.

Therefore, for the time being, U.S. planespotters will need to be satisfied with the 747s, A330s, and the A350s, which for me is fine.