First Dreamliner for Cotswold Airport

Yesterday, April 19th, Flightradar24 showed a flight plan for a Boeing 787 Dreamliner into Cotswold Airport from Basel, Switzerland. This would be the first ever Dreamliner to come to Cotswold Airport, and, with the first 787 flying in 2009, there's no way such aircraft should be landing at Kemble, considering that most large aircraft to land here never fly back out. 

This 787 in particular was the 293rd aircraft of the production line. It is only 9 years old and was delivered to Kalair in April 2015. By May 2015, the aircraft was stored at Basel, having only accumulated 16.5 hours of flight time. 

Of course, being a first-time movement for my local airport, and it being on a Saturday, I was going to go and catch it. I left home around 10am and headed for a layby that would produce some nice shots of the arrival. However, I forgot that planes can land 2 ways on a runway, and I was at the wrong end! Worse still, there's nowhere safe or convenient to catch the arrivals from runway 08. As such, all I could do was try my best with what was available. 

We first spotted the aircraft passing south of the airfield heading west to line up for the runway. For reasons unknown to me, it had made the crossing from Switzerland at a height no higher than 19,000 feet. VP-BDA touched down for possibly the last time at 11:27. It was promptly towed to the north apron. While it has been announced that the aircraft is here for storage, I wouldn't be surprised to see it scrapped, especially considering there's been no interest in it for the last 9 years! Time will of course tell, and I'll make sure to update this when further information comes to light.

Ex Kalair Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner VP-BDA