747 landing at Pearson
 

This might be a better question for the Toronto forum, so mods, go ahead and move it if you must. ;)

I was standing outside at 5:40 this afternoon and a 747 was coming in for a landing at Pearson but I couldn't read the lettering. I didn't recognize the livery. It was an all white fuselage with a half blue, half orange tail.

Anyone know what airline that was?

I was trying to think of the airlines that currently fly 747s to Pearson and I can only think of Air France, KLM and Korean. I'm sure there are others.

I am seeing Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, KLM, and Korean Airlines flying 747s of some kind into YYZ today (as showing on flightaware). I am guessing that it was CX you saw.

Forgot about CX...but looking at their livery, it definitely wasn't them. I had no idea that JAL serviced YYZ.

Not sure what you looked at but:

• JAL doesn't fly in to YYZ. In fact JAL's NRT-YVR is the only route to/from Canada served by a Japanese airline.
  
• KE flies 772s to YYZ, not 744s.

Sitting going nowhere fast in my truck on the 409 at around 5:30 I saw it too. It was definitely a JAL 747-400 coming in from ORD I believe. I remember asking about these oddball flights on FT a few years ago. Apparently then they were to see the fall colours but I think that it's a bit early this year so who knows what this one was for.:confused:

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Japan...7fb532d1b30f8d

Except, JAL's JL010 NRT-ORD was a 773 on September 18th, as it usually is. That's on top of the fact JAL doesn't operate anything other than codeshare with AA metal on ORD-YYZ.

Perhaps it was a JAL cargo flight then. It was without a question a JAL 747. But hell what do I know I actually saw the aircraft on finals coming in from the the east? You are a very smart guy do some more reseaech.:rolleyes:

Neither you nor OP mentioned it being a Cargo plane. Here is the mystery plane, headed for Hokkaido:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/JAL8813

Kind of hard in rush hour traffic to check if it had windows on the fuselage. Anyway mystery is solved.:eek:

It could be a special relief flight as some CA B744s were through YVR (PEK-YVR-PAP)

Thanks all.

And I wasn't able to tell from the distance I was at, whether it was cargo or not, but that makes some sense that it was.

Cheers.

Maybe a diverted ex-NW 744 with the DL livery?

Yet another JAL 747 flew over my house just now. Flight tracker says it's JAL 8813 coming from Port-au-Prince Haiti. Relief flight perhaps or delivering something to aid rebuilding the infrastructure? Very odd.