A gigantic passenger jet drew crowds as it touched down at Edinburgh Airport on Friday at the end of a flight all the way from Bejing in China.
The Air China Boeing 747 aircraft can seat around 400 and had taken 13 hours to make the 4933 mile flight from the Chinese capital.
The arrival of the massive aircraft caused quite a stir among Edinburgh’s plane spotting community. One aircraft enthusiast explained: “The reason we all went crazy was because it's the first time Air China has been to Edinburgh for a good number of years.”
“It's also thought this will have been the last passenger 747 in Scotland as most of the passenger 747s are being retired.”
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Some estimate as many as 200 aircraft enthusiasts turned out, counting people at all four plane-watching sites around the airport perimeter, as well as those plane enthusiasts who work at the airport themselves.
Edinburgh Airport has been operating at a hugely reduced capacity since the start of the lockdown period, so the arrival of a large passenger aircraft was an unusual sight.
The repatriation flight, which arrived on Friday morning had been sent to collect Chinese nationals who had been trapped in Scotland during lockdown.
The plane collected the Chinese citizens and took off, this time headed for the city of Xi’an in central China.
