As the Europa and Champions League tournaments reached a dramatic crescendo, airports across England handled tens of thousands of football fans. Gordon Smith reviews some of the more unusual aircraft laid on for fans heading to the must-see matches.
The prospect of an all-English team final in both the Europa and Champions League was simply too compelling a proposition to miss for thousands of footie fans. In late May and early June, dozens of additional flights were handled at key airports across the country as supporters travelled to attend the two major football finals.
London/Stansted forecasted one of the busiest weeks of the year with huge numbers boarding special services on top of its regularly scheduled flights. Among the most notable of these was the airport’s first Airbus A380 passenger rotation, which took Arsenal and Chelsea fans to the Europa League final in Baku, Azerbaijan.