In the past year, civil aviation, which has almost come to a standstill worldwide, has accelerated a development: more and more aircraft will no longer be used in the near future. They are discarded and have to be parked somewhere.
Parking on the outskirts of commercial airports is associated with high costs. In addition, space is limited. Decades ago, a few remote airports specialized in a special service: the handling of passengers plays almost no role there. The temporary preservation of aircraft in huge open spaces, the sale of spare parts and the recycling of aircraft fuselages is part of their business model.
The aviation enthusiast Sebastian Thomas, who works as an air traffic controller and also has a pilot’s license, does not simply photograph machines taking off and landing at airports like other plane spotters do. Over the years he has also visited the aircraft graveyards and photographed the wingless and partially cannibalized jets there.
Bird’s-eye view of Airliner Boneyards
Thanks to his pilot’s license, he chartered propeller planes in many places and was able to get an overview from the air. This is how he managed to create a unique photo documentation of the final resting places of airplanes.
He now has his photos in the book “After the Last Landing – The World’s Most Fascinating Airplane Graveyards”, published, that in the publishing house GeraMond has appeared.
Thoma not only shows us the “Airliner Boneyards” in the US states of California and Arizona, but also in Europe, such as Teruel in Spain, or in Germany. Hundreds of jets had to be parked at airports from Frankfurt to Finkenwerder to Rostock-Laage in 2020. Not all of them are back in the air for a long time.
Also read:
– These are the largest airplane graveyards in the world
– Airplanes on the Arizona desert battleground
– Terminus Teruel: Why park billions in the Spanish province
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