It is a few minutes walk to the Runway 8/5 cafe that is well used by both spotters and locals. Some images from both the cafe and hotel here HKT 24 Feb 2025.
VTSP/HKT - Phuket - Louis' Runway View Hotel - February 2025
There are five rooms per floor, on four floors. Fourth floor rooms 401/2/3/4 all have good views. Room 401/2/3 look west towards the terminal and 404 directly towards the runway. All have balconies. Contact them in advance. they seem to understand what spotters want. Picture is from room 403.
RCTP/TPE - Taipei Taoyuan - Hyatt Airport Hotel - February 2025
The Novotel has recently been rebranded as Hyatt. There is one shuttle bus per hour from T2
to the Hyatt Airport hotel, alternatively you can take the train one stop, be
warned though like much of Asia the tickets are cash only and are NT25 which I
understand is less than a pound.
Fortunately the wait was no too long and I
joined Mark in the airport view room we had reserved. There is a new terminal 3
being built and whilst it has severely restricted the view the hotel is still
workable for spotting and is still the best location in the area. Both runways
can be seen but views of most stands have been lost. Departures
to the US from Taipei are either very late in the evening or mid-morning,
Arrivals back are either very early in the morning or late in the afternoon. I
had worked out that most regional flights depart in the morning and arrive back
in the evening at some point. There appears to be a lot of towing of aircraft at
Taipei and the primary remote parking ramp can be seen from the Hotel with most
things being able to be identified with something slightly more powerful that
mini bins. Whilst I understand some inbounds for TSA, the downtown airport, can
be seen the cloud base was too low on this occasion.
Extra Note November 2025: Executive twin rooms 832 & 834 were allocated to us here. The hotel itself is situated perfectly at the south-western end of the airport with allocated rooms (and many others) facing the action. The Executive Lounge was also available with similar views. The view you get allows for all runways on both sides of the central terminal structure to be viewed, with aircraft taxiing between the two sides of the airport almost directly beneath you. Terminal 3 is under construction as an extension of the existing terminals on the other side of the main taxiway.
Some parking stands are visible from the hotel but essentially you are monitoring movements. Electronic aids work fine here. Unfortunately, during our stay the weather was primarily torrential (and I mean torrential…) rain which negated any photo opportunities. However, with better weather you would have no issue getting excellent photographs.
This is not a cheap hotel, but is worth it for the views if you have the budget. We paid TWD 9,723 per twin room (approximately £245.00 per night).
Whilst we are at Taipei TPE, if unaware, this is possibly the worst airport you can try to view airside from. There are no views out from any concourses – you have to go down to the gates themselves. A couple of places we noted; at Bistro D (near gate A6), a table adjacent to a small window will give you limited views of runways 05R/23L. In the general area for gate A3, you have good views of runways 05L & 23R. There are other gates in this area, so along as you are not being too obvious, quality time could be spent here but there appears to be nowhere giving a normal panoramic view as such.
Due to the weather I was unable to take any meaningful photos. The video below does give you an idea why - this was taken in 'broad daylight'!
RKSI/ICN - Korea - Seoul Incheon - Ibis Styles Ambassador hotel - February 2025.
The Ibis Styles Ambassador hotel is adjacent to the storage ramp, Some rooms look out over the storage ramp and there are plenty of pictures on the internet of the view, and everything would be read off.
The hotel does not have great
views over the airport so is not a replacement for the Hotel Ora.
From the ground around the hotel, you can read off a number of the stored frames and there is a public area on the second floor that allows a few more to be read off. The lifts require a key card to get to the higher floors. The hotel is close enough to the airport that you can’t order an Uber to it as the app pulls back to the T2 uber pickup point which is too far away to walk to so you are reliant on the hotel shuttle bus that runs every half hour.
VVDN/DAD - Da Nang - Four Points on the beach front - February 2025.
The Hotel I was using for
the conference was the Four Points on the beach front. I had booked a city view
room, they tried to upgrade me to an ocean view and my refusal to accept the
upgrade seemed to confuse them but it worked itself out and I was allocated
room 2910. City view rooms have a view of the 35L/R climb out at about 600ft
and nothing was missed during the stay.
OEJN/JED - Jeddah - Clarion Hotel - February 2025
Clarion Hotel is located just two miles south of the Airport almost under the approach to the middle of the three runways. The hotel has a roof top pool and bar area and is open from 7am until 2am and during the day barely sees anyone go up there. From here you can see the whole airport in front of you but sightings of aircraft on the airfield itself limited due to the size of it and the clutter of buildings especially from the now closed old terminal building. Sadly no Bizjets on the ground can be seen.
If landing from the South, all arrivals can be read with mini bins but landers on the left need a pole. Not knowing how things would pan out, the pole and FlightAware dongles were left at home and it was left to FR24 (ADSB is blocked in Saudi) to bring everything in which it didn't fail except for the ARAMCO B737s that are super blocked from tracking in most instances. I also don't use a camera, though if you were to bring one, I'm not sure if that would then attract unwanted attention. Anything already in not seen on landing, will likely be missed if departing North as hardly anything plots on the ground before lift off. If they are taking off towards the hotel, then it would all need to be done electronically.
The hotel itself isn't cheap at around £130 a night plus breakfast at around £18 per person. The evening buffet sells at around £23 a head though a limited bar menu is available to eat on the roof for less that that. Nothing outside nearby so you would need to taxi it somewhere if you don't want to pay those charges.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/SvkJpt56hN7pTR7w5
Credit Kev Widdowson
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