You won’t realize when you see the picture the first time..
At first glance, this looks like a clean shot of the Atlanta airport at full length of the terminals with the runways on both sides visible.
The frequent fliers will realize that this is a near impossible shot. When you are taking off or landing, you can never reach a height required to get such a clean shot. And that is true. And when you do reach such a height you are usually far away from the airport. In fact, strictly speaking, you have to be in a restricted zone – usually a few thousand feet right above a runway to get that shot.
So, you are probably wondering what happened. Well, we had to abort our landing. Third time in my flying life. The tow vehicle pulling a plan got stuck while crossing a runway and the runway had to be shut down a few seconds before we were to touch down.
The safest maneuver at that point was to not try to bank left or right but fly right over the runway while gaining height (remember there is no flight taking off from that runway since it is shut down) and then bank only when you get to a normal take off flight route.
I had scramble fast to get my phone out and take the shot…

After we settled down in our flight to Lexington (from Atlanta), the Delta lady came over the PA system. She started by “Welcome to our non-stop flight to Lexington” immediately followed by “Today’s flight will be a short 46 minute ride”.

And I am like – “What do you mean ‘non-stop’ ??? What are the other options? It is a 46 minute flight for crying out loud. Do the other flights to Lexington have to stop to refuel after 30 minutes?” 🙂

But I let it be since she got me a nice gin and tonic after her announcement 🙂