In late November and early December of 2014, I had the opportunity to pass through Shanghai’s Pudong Airport on several occasions during my travels in the region.

By arriving at the gate area for my flights early, this gave plenty of opportunity to take photos. I had a mix of weather, but the traffic was quite interesting, with quite a few Boeing 747-400s still making regular appearances at this airport.

It was good to see 747-400s of Delta, Asiana, United, China Airlines, and even a 747-200 Freighter of Connie Kalitta, which is a regular visitor to Pudong. The Air Canada 787 and Nippon Cargo 747-800 mixed company with Emirates A380 and Malaysian A330 as sun started to set, but the action was almost non stop for the two hours I had while we awaited the departure of our 787 back to Vancouver.

The windows in the departure areas as quite clean, and there is no problem for hobbyists to take photos at this aircraft. Have your camera on your lap when you sit in your seat on your aircraft as there are some good photo opportunities when you depart and arrive Pudong. On our ANA 767-300 flight to Osaka KIX I was able to get some neat views of the Pudong terminal building from a few thousand feet abeam the mid section of the airport.

In the mid 1990s when Kai Tak was Hong Kong’s crown jewel airport of the region, it attracted aviation fans and photographers from all over the world to experience the heart-pounding action of the famous checkerboard approach.

I made several visits to Hong Kong back in the day to experience Kai Tak first hand. And during those visits, I also made several visits to Guangzhou (formerly Canton) to soak up the action on mainland China.

Unlike the wide-body hustle and bustle of Kai Tak, Guangzhou served up generous portions of mainland China airline action, and back then, many of the Chinese fleets still used Russian jetliners including IL-86, Yak-42 and Tu-154 classics. So the appeal was more than obvious!

The following article was written for Airliners magazine and documented one such memorable visit. I was also able to shoot video of my visit which is available as a top selling aviation DVD.

The current airline scene in China is sadly nothing more than boring Boeings and plastic Airbuses. But back then, it was an airplane lover’s dream come true!