Past reports had quoted 8th floor room numbers 5813, 5815, 5817 & 5819 but we were informed that these were one King bed only and we had Executive Twin rooms booked instead. The very helpful check-in staff informed us that similar views with the room type booked could be had from the 7th floor.
I took room 5715 for example and could see the departures heading North off runways 01L, 01 & 02L & 02R and whatever the runway is, the downwinds heading South and the over the tops going into Shenzhen and Zhuhai. Even when dark, it was possible to see enough of the departures. No view of arrivals from these rooms but if you go the end of the corridor, you’ll see a nice window looking out towards the runway on the West side of the airport. Here you can catch them landing and rolling out.
So a mix of the room and corridor window allows coverage of 3 of the 4 combinations needed. The 8th floor would be better for the corridor window but I don’t think the 6th floor or lower would be any good for that, as the size of the airport infrastructure gets in the way.
We were up dawn which was 06:45 to find that they had switched runway direction and were departing away from us, effectively meaning that I saw all the aircraft I had stayed up to see last night again except in Daylight, this runway configuration remained in place for the remainder of our visit and it meant that the aircraft were coming from behind you but with the patchy ground coverage and the fact that they didn’t appear of FR24 until they were established in the climb thankfully we had a ADSB receiver which showed aircraft as they accelerated for take off and rotated otherwise it would have been much more complex. With the exception of time away from the room window for a leisurely breakfast returning just in time to see B-20DM rotate completing my China Southern triples, and a break for afternoon coffee and cake we were spotting until about 23:00. part way through the afternoon whist stood up looking out of the window we noticed that there was a view of Landers on the left rolling out. During which time I logged 195 unique aircraft that had not been seen the previous evening and made 70 of them. Despite having made 78 the previous evening I was making about 6-10 an hour until around 3PM when it suddenly dropped to about 2-3 an hour at which level it remained for the rest of the day.
With the alarm set for 06:20 we made our required first wave departures before I left and headed for the airport to catch the China Southern flight back to London. Check in opens three hours before departure, the international terminal is huge, and relatively empty. Airside the best place to spot from in my opinion is around gate 168 where departures from both runways can be seen climbing out as well as left hand side arrivals as they taxi back towards the terminal, it’s only a few moments’ walk to an area where right had landers can be seen from, in any case most Terminal 1 bound landers on the right taxi past you to get to the terminal.
