Plane Spotting – San Juan, Puerto Rico
Story and photos by Ken Kula
Our winter 2024 cruise departed from and returned to San Juan, Puerto Rico. My wife and I flew nonstop between Boston, Massachusetts’ Logan International Airport to the Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU – ICAO is TJSJ) via a Delta Airlines Airbus A-321neo. I really like Delta’s navigation panes in their flight entertainment packages!
We didn’t have much time to spend upon arrival to San Juan, but the next day we boarded our cruise liner early, and much to my surprise, our dock was next to a different airport in San Juan.
The Fernando Luis Ribas Dominicci Airport (also known as the Isla Grande airport) sits alongside the Pan American Cruise Ship Terminal and offers a single 5,500 foot runway that serves smaller air link traffic, some on-demand and charter aircraft, and small to mid-sized general aviation jets and twin prop aircraft. Some US Coast Guard, police and military aircraft seem to frequent the airport too. Sitting on the 11th deck of the cruise ship’s stern, I got a pleasing overview of the airport, and got a few bird’s eye view photos of a few departures.
As our fantastic cruise ended, we once again returned to the Pan American Cruise Ship Terminal and got ground transportation to SJU. I had a few hours to spot airliners… the weather had deteriorated into intermittent rain showers, but there were enough breaks to witness a number of arrivals and departures from our terminal. One of my favorite catches of the day were the Cape Air Britten-Norman Islanders that shuttle passengers to smaller islands nearby in the Caribbean. The Air Transat A-321 was another unexpected movement.
The main San Juan airport hosts plenty of freighters; I watched a FedEx MD-11 roar off of the wet runway, and caught a surprising Boeing B-767 freighter from Aloha Air Cargo – yup, in Puerto Rico! There were a few corporate jets at the FBOs in sight too.
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