PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - St. Helena Service
View Single Post
Old 15th Dec 2016, 00:46
  #498 (permalink)  
Harry Wayfarers
 
Join Date: Sep 2016
Location: Siargao Island
Posts: 1,043
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
The results seen so far are suitable aircraft identified and a new tender being issued.
Back in 1982 Argentina invaded a group of south Atlantic islands that many Brits had never heard of and all of a sudden operators were queuing up to operate air services to the Falklands, British Air Ferries for one and a new start-up, in the wake of the Laker Airways bankruptcy, 'South Atlantic Airways' which a certain Mr Branson invested in to changing the name to 'Virgin Atlantic Airways' which has never made it to the Falklands yet ... as far as I am aware!

Now we have similar entrepreneur(s), after Mount Pleasant we have another new airfield in the south Atlantic, queuing up to operate air services there, they've managed to access a somewhat geriatric BAe146 jet of at least 16 years vintage, heavy on TLC since the day it was new, endurance/payload problems etc., thus not really suitable for operations to/from such a remote island with alternates far and few between.

I'm presuming that the Embraer was operated by the manufacturer rather than an interested operator, at least the type is still in production although it is a little bit different operating empty aircraft as opposed to fully laden aircraft in/out of such an airfield, length of runway required etc.

So, so far, there is an entrepreneur or few wishing to operate a geriatric jet with endurance/payload restrictions/problems, I mean does such a proposed operation have anything going in it's favour or is it likely to be one problem after another after another etc?

Other than that there has been a test flight by Embraer with no actual type operator known to be queuing up to operate the services.

As with the Falklands in 1982, then South Atlantic Airways and British Air Ferries were both very vocal about operating there but it was all, pretty much, hot air!

Last edited by Harry Wayfarers; 15th Dec 2016 at 00:57.
Harry Wayfarers is offline