European airlines flying rare aircraft types

[davidjohnson6]

Biman, KLM and Monarch have recently retired their DC10, MD11 and A300 aircraft making these aircraft extremely rare in Europe.

Has anyone seen something reasonably current listing which airlines still fly rare types, allowing people to buy a ride as a passenger without spending a huge fortune before they're gone for good ? I'm ignoring cases of flights being run purely as joyrides - I'm thinking solely of flights available to all, which land at an airport different to the departure airport, are used at least once per week and sold primarily for ordinary commercial passenger transport.

Cases that come to mind are (please add if you know of others)

King Air B200 - Bergen Air Transport
B1900 - Hexair / Twinjet
Cessna 208 - Finistair
Cessna Citation CJ4 - Hahn Air (yes, really !)
Piper PA-31 - Lydd Air
Piper PA-32 - S-Air (in the guise of Flexflight)
Dornier 328 - Loganair / Skywork / Sun Air
Fairchild Metro - Air Norway / CanaryFly
Let410 - Van Air Europe for Citywing
CRJ 100 - Hop!
CRJ 200 - Air Nostrum / Adria / Cimber
CRJ 1000 - Air Nostrum / Hop!
A310 - SATA Acores
A318 - Air France / Tarom
B717 - Volotea
MD-80 - Meridiana / Danish Air Transport
J31 - AIS / Sun Air
J32 - AIS / Direktflyg
J41 - Eastern / SkyExpress
Emb120 - Air Moldova / Trade Air for Croatia Airlines
Emb135 - Eastern / bmi regional
Emb145 - bmi regional / Hop! / Luxair / Portugalia
Islander - Scilly Skybus / Ostfriesische / Loganair / Aer Arann Islands
Trislander - Aurigny
BAe ATP - Nextjet
RJ85 - Cityjet / Malmo
RJ100 - Brussels / Malmo
Twin Otter - Loganair / Scilly Skybus
Saab 340 - Loganair / Nextjet
Saab 2000 - Loganair / Darwin / Eastern / Braathens Regional for Sverigefly
Fokker 50 - Air Iceland / Cityjet
Fokker 70 - KLM

[Cymmon]

Islander also with Loganair. Well worth a trip on the Westray-Papa Westray link. Free miniature whisky and certificate of the event.

[Dash8driver1312]

A318 is also flying for Tarom.

[KelvinD]

And a pair of A318 with British Airways

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

DHL operate A300s - one just went into Heathrow.

[DaveReidUK]

DHL operate A300s - one just went into Heathrow.Yes, plenty of rarer types still operating as freighters. But the OP did specify:

allowing people to buy a ride as a passengerHaving said that, you can still roll up at Heathrow most days and buy a ticket on an A300 of Kuwait Airways to either JFK or KWI.

[davidjohnson6]

Cymmon + Dash8Driver - thank you for your suggestions, I've added them to the opening post.
KelvinD - you're absolutely right about BA having a pair of A318s, but a business class ticket for LCY-JFK is not exactly cheap !

[rog747]

as i said on the MON page:

it doesn't have to be the onus on the airline to organise a special flight -

anyone can approach and arrange a private charter - ie: that's what Ian Allan do and others also

if someone can be bothered to drum up the impetus (like the successful Biman and KLM MD11 recent last flights) then dont see why Monarch is excluded

too late for the MON 757 - and yes it was a historical aircraft for british aviation but the A330 of theirs is an icon too
last big jet and last long haul services for the airline which commenced using big jets with the 720B looong ago

its up to someone and just do it and start it rolling


if you are looking for rare aircraft for enthusiasts flights then Virgin and BA 747's & 767's will be history within a few years
Virgin LHR 747 much sooner.

Virgin A340-600 and 300 (be quick on the 300)

Thomson 767-300 (owners abroad FCA a/c first)

[Donkey497]

Not exactly a European airline, but Air Transat still use A310's on their transatlantic routes.


Nice & Comfy.

[TurboTomato]

Yeah pretty sure I still see them coming in and out of Gatwick.

[Just a spotter]

Aer Arann Islands (the original bit of the Aer Arran operation before they expanded and got the ATR's ) run a couple of BN2A & 2B Islanders between the Irish mainland and the Arann Islands off the west coast of Galway.

JAS

[KelvinD]

Air Transat fly daily into Manchester during the summer, frequently using the A310.
Iran Air also fly the A300 into Heathrow 3 times per week. (Good luck with booking a seat on that one!)

[skydiver69]

Iran Air also fly the A300 into Heathrow 3 times per week. (Good luck with booking a seat on that one!)

And/or a 747 SP and you'd have no problem booking seats on either. I've just spent 2 1/2 weeks in Iran and had a great time.

[DaveReidUK]

Sadly, Iran Air haven't sent an SP to Heathrow since 2010.

[Cymmon]

Carpatair/Moldavian operate Fokker 70's, there are some airlines in the Ukraine that still operate MD--80's and Polet airlines operate Saab 2000's.

You forgot the early DHC-8 series too, the 100-300.

[DaveReidUK]

If you widen the scope to specific variants, there are lots more possibilities.

For example, A340-500s are increasingly rare, -200s even more so.

[davidjohnson6]

The only normal scheduled route Carpatair seem to sell is a summer seasonal Lublin-Rome. I've checked on FR24 - seems to be operated by a F100 which isn't *that* rare in Europe for the time being at least.

I'm aware some airlines in Eastern Ukraine operate rare types but also aware that most people reading this thread will likely live some distance from that part of the world, and perhaps be a little ambivalent about going there given current press. My aim is to suggest credible and modestly priced options for people who would like to buy a ride on a specific type of aircraft. I've also excluded Russia as most EU citizens and non-Russians need a (rather complicated to obtain) visa.

I know adding subvariants is possible, but the scope just gets too large - sorry !

[JumboJet1999]

As for BAe 146/Avro RJ there is also..


Ellinair
Astra Airlines
-
Both in Greece










And Helvetic Airways have Fokker 100, not sure if you consider that rare

[Smoketrails]

I wouldn't call F70's rare yet as there is still a whole bunch of them flying around for KLM Cityhopper and Austrian. I think the term rare could be used in say like, the B737-200 of Aviogenex that operated throughout Europe for mainly JAT in the summer of 2013. I wouldn't even call all the weird and wonderful Bulgarian and Romanian MD80's rare....yet!

[SWBKCB]

I know you don't want to get too far into sub variants, but I see that Aer Lingus are to operate B767-200's leased from Omni between Shannon and Boston next summer - can't think of any others currently operating pax schedules in Europe?

This thread makes me feel so old...

[edi_local]

TU 154 is still in regular use by Belavia out of Minsk, sometimes in Warsaw. They are also an operator of the CRJ, but then so are Lufthansa Regional and SAS too.

Belarus has a few domestic airlines which fly older Soviet aircraft but the ability to buy tickets or even see when routes area operating is pretty difficult.

Transaero also operate the TU 214, although not sure if this flies in to Western European cities.

[Wiggly Bob]

Luffty 747-800?

You didn't state old and rare ;)

[MrSnuggles]

There is an Estonian airline that operates some shady aircraft models. Don't know any names right now, but worth looking into maybe?

I had the misfortune to go on Blue1's B717 this summer. It was noisy and crammed, and the extra super duper mega first class ticket was SO not worth it. I was seated in the very front of the plane, butting knees with the FAs on start and landing. Still the noise levels were horrendous - I can't imagine how awful it must have been further back! Crew was very nice though. One of the pilots greeted me almost as an old friend - I was extremely surprised by that.

[Rain dog]

Ruby Star?

[SpringHeeledJack]

I saw an Aer Lingus B757 at DUB a few months ago that was doing the Dublin to Toronto route, it even had an Irish EI- registration.


SHJ

[ConstantFlyer]

Managed to get a ride on an Aeroflot IL-96 in 2013 before they were taken out of service last year. Magnificent. Not so lucky when I tried to go on an AN-24 from Tromso-Murmansk, as the flights were suspended last autumn due to regulatory hiccups in Norway. Flights from Moscow to Saratov and Izhevsk are still possible on YAK-42s, though they are slowly being replaced with western types.