Strike one!

We had a line of thunderstorms push through Los Angeles around six in the morning a couple of weeks ago. Along with all the wind and rain, we also had thunder and lightning - an uncommon occurrence in LA. During the storm there were many lightning strikes around the airport, and several strikes on the field -- one of which was a direct hit on the tower! I was on duty at the time, and in the cab the flash was almost blinding. We knew that the lightning strike was really close by -- about twenty feet above our heads, as it turned out. All of our equipment is shielded from things like this, so we were able to continue on without interruption. It wasn't until later that it was confirmed to us that the tower itself had been hit. Thanks to some help from the airport, we got these photos from various cameras scattered around the field.

Dreaming of Dreamliners

Air Canada is yet another carrier bringing Boeing B787s to LAX. This is a -9, which is replacing the B767-300 in Air Canada's fleet. Air Canada has both B787-8 and B787-9 models, configured for 251 and 298 passengers, respectively. We see a mix of Air Canada's wide body jets on the midday flight from Toronto; the Dreamliner is the current favorite, although we also regularly get A330s and B777s. Here are a few more B787 shots:

Head-on view, because how often do you get to see a Dreamliner from this angle?

That's a LAN B787-8 on takeoff roll to Lima, Peru, a seven-hour flight; with a Delta B717 sandwiched in between. LAN's B787-8s are configured for 247 passengers, while the Delta B717s accommodate 110.

With a Southwest B737-800. Note the new split scimitar winglets on the B737. The B737-800 is the largest aircraft in Southwest's fleet, with a passenger capacity of 175.

That's a Saudia B777-300 parked at gate 123A; one of the few vestiges left of the old TBIT.
Saudia flies in from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the world's 6th-longest scheduled airline flight, with 305 passengers.

The red-tailed B767-300 in the background belongs to Air Canada rouge, and carries 280 passengers
between LAX and Vancouver.

Another Boeing sandwich: An Allegiant B757-200 in the foreground, with a United B757-300 rolling for departure behind.
The Allegiant B757s seat 215 passengers, and will soon be disappearing from LAX, as Allegiant uses them for Hawaii service -- which will be ending in August of this year. United acquired its B757-300s via the merger with Continental, and is the largest operator of that model, as Continental was before the merger. When they flew for Continental, they were configured for 216 passengers; with United they now carry 213.

New Alaska paint

Alaska Airlines has recently refreshed their paint scheme; thanks to a couple of my sharp-eyed coworkers I can show it to you here. Thanks guys!

Revealed: What's special about those pictures

Several of you came close to guessing this one. One critical piece of information is that American Airlines has gates at Terminal Four, while US Airways parks at Terminal Six. For the time being, the new American is using gates at both terminals. Both of these shots illustrate a first in the US Airways - American merger: The first legacy American Airlines aircraft to park at a US Air gate at LAX, and the first US Airways aircraft to park at an American gate. True, in the opening shot the other airplane at a US Airways gate is wearing the new American colors, but if you look closely you'll see that it's a repainted US Airways aircraft. In the second shot, the aircraft still wearing the US Airways livery is a B757. What's interesting about that is that so far, the only B757s we've seen at LAX getting the new American paint are the former US Airways airplanes; the American B757s seem to be retaining the bare metal AA livery. I suspect that may be because many of those airplanes are being phased out, and as such don't merit the expense of a new paint job. Many of the American B757 routes out of LAX are now being flown either with B737-800s or A321s.