What a sight to lay your eyes on. As you drive from the south into Alice Springs in central Australia, you can see an incredible sight at the moment, a parking lot of International aircraft.

The reason behind it is the Covid 19 pandemic causing international air travel to grind to a halt. The tails of the aircraft are visible and include Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Scoot and more.

This Alice Springs boneyard as it’s known, has the capacity to hold 100 aircraft, and it looks to have just that sitting on the ground now. This dry desert site was chosen by the airlines because of its low rainfall and hot weather reducing the chances of rust and staff are on hand to carry out maintenance tasks to keep the planes operational.

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Many of the planes on the ground have come from Singapore and Hong Kong and are here for long term storage rather than stay in their humid countries of origin. The dry desert air and cool nights are pretty perfect for storing these huge machines which include some A380 airbuses.

While they are being stored the maintenance on them includes engine bay examination, tyre rotation and brake system maintenance.

It is quite strange as you stand outside this facility and see this eerie sight but as we watched, a small Qantas plane arrived which must give the passengers onboard a remarkable view too.

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Luckily I’m a happy road tripper, so I’m content to wander around Australia, caravan in tow, and for the foreseeable future that seems all we’ll be likely to do anyway.

Happy travels

Glenys