PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Manx Airlines Saab SF340 - G-HOPP
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Old 25th Jan 2023, 22:06
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Flightrider
 
Join Date: Jan 2000
Location: UK
Posts: 1,479
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It's a particular aircraft which had a history of being unloved. Birmingham Executive took on the sole 340 as an intended upgrade/replacement for the Jetstream 31s on long routes like Birmingham-Stuttgart and Birmingham-Oslo but found the 340 was simply too slow over those length of sectors for them, and headed off to the Gulfstream 1 instead, with G-BSFI (as it then was) being handed back to Saab.

Manx Airlines was then handed the Liverpool-Heathrow route by its parent company British Midland and took on G-BSFI which became G-HOPP. If I recall correctly, they had no end of difficulty with ground power and starter genny issues on this particular aircraft and also decided that the 340 wasn't for them. As billyg says, it is in Australia and went via Kendell Airlines into Rex, and it has been flying after a freighter conversion for Pel-Air, which is the charter offshoot of Rex. Rex happens to be the world's largest 340 operator with 60 of them, which is quite some fleet. Silver Airways and Loganair were second largest operators at different times - Silver have now phased out their 340s and Loganair look to be going the same way during this year.
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