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The Louisville airport is the home base of United Parcel Service and there’s always a wide variety of UPS planes including 747s – except on Sundays. Passenger traffic is somewhat limited, but includes Southwest and several regional airlines such as Delta Connection and American Eagle.
There is a residential area on the west side of the airport similar to the one at Memphis where you can park on the grass where homes once stood and watch traffic on the west runway. Most UPS planes use this runway. It is located along Crittenden Ave. near Nevada Ave. south of the I-264 freeway (shaded area on map). Since you are facing east, the best photography would be in the afternoon but weekends are slow since UPS does not fly on Sunday and has a limited schedule on Saturday.
The other area is a new parking lot called the “Waiting Area”. It is on the east side of the terminal loop (just follow the signs; see map) and was built after 9/11 when cars could no longer park near the terminal to wait for passengers. Cars can go to this lot and park & wait for passengers but since it is near the end of the east runway you will also get a good view of traffic using this runway. There is no charge and photography is also best in the afternoon here. Most of the passenger airline traffic uses this runway.
Louisville can be a somewhat slow airport to watch aircraft at but you don’t need a huge lens to shoot photos of those big UPS jets using the west runway.
Click for photos from the Waiting Area