It occurred to me last night while trying to fall asleep that our flight arrival time could potentially line up with us flying over MK about the same time as fireworks. We’re flying from New Orleans to MCO with an arrival time of 10:50pm, on a night of MNSSHP.
No big deal if we see them or not, would just be a little bonus magic, but was curious if anyone knew what side of the aisle we should sit on just in case. “Driver” or “Passenger” side? Do the flights get routed north or south of the parks to keep the air space clear above?
I’ve never been able to catch a glimpse of WDW property on the flight in. I wonder if the approach is from the wrong angle. Coming from NH, we always seem to swing out over the Atlantic before taking a right, so to speak, and approaching from a southeasterly direction.
On my flights out I’ve seen it a couple of times, always from the
passenger side of the plane, to use your jargon (the right side as sitting in the seat and facing the front of the plane)
My gut says passenger side (right side when sitting facing the front) too, since I think it’s usually a straight line flight over the gulf. Even if the descent may not have us low enough to see the parks at that point anyways it’s worth a shot!
I guess I can stalk some flight paths for similar flights and see what they do. Was hoping someone had experience with it and it was an easy answer!
In the Origin field enter the airport you will be flying out of. Example: type in phil and select KPHL for Philadelphia
In the Destination field enter MCO and select Orlando
Press the hour glass icon to search for all the tracked flights
Scan down this list of flights to find the flight you will be taking that also has a status of Arrived, mean the flight has landed, and select it. Example: American 2502 (AAL2502)
Scroll down a bit to see the flight path plotted on a map
Do that for a couple of days and see if there is a typical flight path
You can also look at all flights on all carriers from the Origin and see if there is a typical flight path. I’m guessing you will see the most common approach is direct from the North, but that often there will be a path that flies past Orlando and does a 180 degree button hook to approach from the south.
Warning there is bound to be a fair bit of inconsistency as many factors will go into determining which flight path the controllers decide to use.
This is really neat! I will definitely play around with this! There is an active flight as I type this from New Orleans to MCO and they are approaching Orlando from the North. Will keep checking to see if that’s the norm or because of the rainstorm over FL at the moment. Thanks for sharing!
Doing some quick searches on Flightaware, planes coming in from MSY take some odd routes to get through Florida. The biggest issue I see is that Disney is WSW of the airport, but the airport runways run north-south. That puts the theme park at a very odd angle when approaching the runways.
Planes have come over The Gulf through Tampa, and approached MCO that way. That looked like there is a possible view from the port (left/driver’s) side. There are flights that seem to stay on the Florida land border with Alabama and Georgia until past Tallahassee. Those don’t seem to get close enough to WDW.
Most airports have more than one approach, depending on weather conditions. So I’m not sure if there’s a way to ensure you’re on the “right”. (correct) side.
