The last stop on my six-flight journey to Slovakia to meet up with my dad before our trip to Africa was Stuttgart. Since I had over two hours between my Eurowings flight from London and Austrian flight to Vienna, I spent some time on the airport’s observation deck.
Not having done much research beforehand, I was surprised to find a number of aircraft on display on top of the deck.
Stuttgart Airport.
Plane Spotting at Stuttgart Airport’s Observation Deck
Like many other airports in Germany, Stuttgart Airport has a rooftop observation deck. It is open daily from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. spring through fall and from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. in winter.
The deck spans the entire width of the main terminal building and offers solid views of some of the parking spots at the terminal and the taxiways leading to them. It also offers distant views of the airport’s sole runway.
Observation deck.
Stuttgart Airport’s deck is equipped with some seating, vending machines, as well as a children’s playground.
There are even three aircraft on display. More about those in the next section, though.
Some of the seating on the observation deck.
Seating and vending machines.
Playground.
Considering the deck’s opening hours and the fact that it is facing south, it is mostly useful photography-wise on summer evenings.
Ranking number seven in the number of passengers served among German airports, Stuttgart Airport is not particularly busy. The airport is also not particularly exciting in terms of traffic with the only long-haul service being seasonal Delta Air Lines flights from Atlanta and a considerable portion of the movements being Eurowings aircraft.
That said, I still enjoyed my time on the deck, in particular once the sun came out.
Eurowings A319.
Eurowings A320.
Eurowings A320 leased from Avion Express Malta.
The personal highlight during my short stay was an ITA Airways Airbus A319 arriving from Rome.
While I had photographed the airline’s A350-900s in Tokyo multiple times before, it was my first time seeing a narrow-body aircraft in the airline’s striking blue livery.
ITA Airways A319.
What a stunning livery!
It was also nice to see a United States Air Force Dornier Do-328 (C-146A to be precise), albeit only taxiing in the distance on the other side of the airport after landing.
US Air Force Dornier.
Other traffic I saw during the one hour or so I spent on the observation deck included a KLM Cityhopper E175 departing to Amsterdam, a Pegasus 737-800 departing to Istanbul, a Vueling A320 arriving from Barcelona, an Aegean A321neo arriving from Athens, a Turkish Airlines A321neo departing to Istanbul, and a Swiss A320 arriving from Zurich.
While none of those is exciting in and of itself in particular, it was still nice to be able to see a decent variety of European airlines given that I do not spend much time plane spotting at European airports these days.
KLM E175.
Pegasus 737-800.
Vueling A320.
Aegean A321neo.
Turkish Airlines A321neo.
Swiss A320.
Stuttgart Airport’s Small Aviation Museum
As mentioned above, the observation deck also serves as a mini museum with three aircraft on display.
The largest of those is a PZL-Mielec An-2 (a Poland-manufactured version of the Antonov An-2) wearing a dark blue livery. While in the past the aircraft appears to have worn SP-ANL as its registration, that might not have been the aircraft’s real registration given that there appears to have been another An-2 with the same registration.
An-2.
The only other fixed-wing aircraft on display in the museum is a single-engine prop North American AT-6A Texan registered D-FOBY.
AT-6A Texan.
The last aircraft on display is a PZL-Swidnik Mi-2 Hoplite (a Poland-manufactured version of the Mil Mi-2) helicopter registered SP-SAW.
Mi-2.
In addition to actual aircraft being displayed on the observation deck, there also some aircraft components on display in front of the observation deck entrance inside the terminal.
Aircraft components on display.
Summary
All in all, if you have a couple of hours to spare at Stuttgart Airport and enjoy watching aircraft then the observation deck is a fun place to stop by.
While the time it is useful for taking photos is limited (unless it is cloudy and the sun’s position doesn’t matter), it is still worth a visit to, if nothing else, see the three aircraft on display.