Planespotting Guides for United Arab Emirates' Airfields and Airports

Spotting locations, viewing areas, the best spotting hotel rooms and advice on access for plane spotters travelling to airports and airfields in United Arab Emirates. Use the hotlinks above or scroll down for spotting information on spotting locations, airfield hangar access, aviation museums, preserved aircraft. Plus all the information has been plotted as Points of Interest and can be downloaded to your SatNavs, Google Earth and Google Maps to make planning your spotting trips abroad so much easier and helping you log many more

DUBAI AIRPORT (OMDB/DXB)

The Grand Excelsior Hotel Deira is definitely worth visiting, either as a dedicated trip or as a stopover to somewhere else. If you're not staying here, contact the hotel beforehand to ask permission to spot from the roof and they should be ok as long as you buy refreshments. Once you arrive, speak to management and show them the response from your previous contact if necessary. They are happy for you to stay, again as long as you buy refreshments, although some spotters are being charged 60 Dirham per day (about £9) to use the facilities, still a bargain. The facilities are excellent, and there should be no problems spotting from the poolside or the roof. There are frequent visits by the hotel security people, but they seem to be ok with spotting/photographing planes. There is a police station across from the hotel so it's best to spot at the far side. By doing this you are out of view should you need to look out across the airport. Radios are not permitted and will be confiscated. Arrivals are typically landing over the hotel right through out the night and morning till 12pm, after which they are departing over the hotel. They change runway operations to landing back over the hotel anytime from 9pm onwards. All arrivals and departures can easily be read off over the hotel, though aircraft taxiing to depart away from the hotel are very hard to get in the heat haze so most are missed during the times they are departing. Some mornings however it's clear, make the most of these mornings to get these departures. The rooftop pool area opens at 6.30am and closes at 11pm. Once the rooftop pool area is closed you can still monitor the arrivals by walking outside the hotel and sitting on some benches that face the hotels outside the car park. From here most of the arrivals can be read off with the exception of one or two. If you are going to do this, be discrete about it, it's one thing doing your spotting by the pool (they know what you're doing), but the public may not and if you act in a suspicious manner then there is a good chance of being moved away. Arrivals over the hotel at night are usually every 2-3 minutes. This is the time the A340-500s and 300s and the B773ERs start returning. Only a small amount of A340s are seen departing over the hotel during the day from 12pm onwards, most taxi and depart away from the hotel. As mentioned, if it's a clear morning you will get most of these as they taxi on to the runway for departure. Photos are not so good for departures due to the height of the aircraft relative to the pool level (unless it's an IL76 or AN12 which is struggling to get airborne!).
The Grand Excelsior Hotel Deira features on for reviews, prices and room availability

The Avenue Hotel in the Deira area, not far from the Sheraton, has a rooftop with good views of everything departing. You will need a good set of bins or scope to log the arrivals.
The Avenue Hotel features on for reviews, prices and room availability

Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah
Renting a car for the day is also recommended as Sharjah is only a few km away, and a mornings outing here and at Ras Al Kaminah will net you some nice extra numbers. Hertz is 200 Dirham (about £30) for 24 hours rental, but beware that some rental companies charge an extra 75 Dirham each way for dropping off and picking the car up from the hotel, so it may be worthwhile getting a taxi back to the airport to pick your car up.
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RAS AL KHAIMAH AIRPORT (OMRK/RKT)

Spotting Info
The cafe gives views of the apron (free parking) and most of the parked stuff can be read off on the approach road or the waste ground alongside.

SHARJAH AIRPORT (OMSJ/SHJ)

Spotting Info
When you enter the main terminal area, walk towards the check-in desks. There is a security checkpoint before you get to the check-in desks where there are guards, bag-scanning and body-scanners. Tell the security guard you want to see the airport duty manager and they will point you towards his office. It's to the right up a small staircase. You may have to wait for him, but it's well worth it as you may only log a dozen aircraft from the terminal, but with the printout, you'll tie up nearly every aircraft out there. It lists aircraft by where they are parked, callsign & registration. As it is a scan/photocopy some registrations are unreadable or hard to decipher but you get the majority of what's there. Don't worry about the date and time it says on the top of the sheet, it's not always changed. Just explain to him that you collect aircraft registrations and ask for a list of what's currently on the airport. He has to phone someone from ops but they send it to the printer in his office and he just gives it to you. They are all very friendly and enjoy a good chat about aircraft. Just remember to be courteous & thankful, don't rush out of his office, stay and chat to him about the development of the airfield and especially about Air Arabia. And while everyone says please & thank you and he is only too willing to give out lists of aircraft, lets hope that one or two people don't mess this up for the rest of us. He may also try to ring the passes office to try and get you airside, though without photography. Airfield work is due to finish summer of 2007 and ramp passes should be available again from June 2007 but this is a rough estimate only.
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