Stopping Traffic

To mark the death of Gordon Reid, we’re republishing our profile of him, written after he gave up his column in 2020. Adam Thorn tells the story of the softly spoken Scotsman and his giddy enthusiasm for the comings and goings of aircraft.

To the untrained eye, each edition of Traffic was nothing more than a jumble of codes and dates, but to planespotting enthusiasts, each told a story. The first entry of the very last instalment, published in edition 376, was a blockbuster:

“In this issue, we report the delivery of two 787-9s to Qantas.