Scheduled airline flying VFR in the EU

[davidjohnson6]

Booked on a scheduled flight on an IATA member airline yesterday to go between 2 EU airports. Heavy rain arrived and flight was cancelled.

How common is it for scheduled flights in the EU to be VFR only (ie no IFR capacity) ?

[virginblue]

What makes you believe that this was due to VFR? The recent heavy rain in Germany has led to the cancellation of dozens of flights, but it had nothing to do with VFR.

[fa2fi]

Which airline and route?

[davidjohnson6]

Airline says on its website that all flights are VFR. When I emailed, airline confirmed all flights are VFR
only. Route I was due to fly was between a Cat I and a Cat III airport - neither of which were busy.
Just curious as to whether this is a one off or if there are other airlines in the EU operating on the same basis.

[NorthSouth]

Hebridean Air Services from Oban
Loganair in Orkney
Directflight in Shetland

[kcockayne]

This must surely be a "low level" airline i.e. far from being a major European airline flying between important European cities. Come on, tell us which one & the route involved. If the airline involved publicises that its flights are VFR on its website they would surely not be embarrassed by you telling us their identity!

[rutankrd]

Just a plum guess was it per chance Citywing/Van Air operations with the Czech Lets - They fly pretty low on the short Irish sea hops.

[HeartyMeatballs]

Maybe if the OP wasn't deliberately coy and just came out and told us the route we could help??

[davidjohnson6]

Flexflight Augsburg-Salzburg

[HeartyMeatballs]

Scheduled to be a PA32 Saratoga which is a single engine. I'm not sure about EU regs on VFR scheduled flights but I don't think they're prohibited. But the big one for me is the single engine aspect. I thought those ops were prohibited in Europe on scheduled services.

I did a dummy booking and it says VISUAL FLIGHT RULE FOR TRAVEL WITHIN EUROPE NO GUARANTEE THAT FLIGHT WILL BE OPERATED DUE TO VFR Salzburg.

What an odd set up. A Danish company operating a single engine flight once a week on a Thursday from Germany to Austria on its only one route. I don't get it.

[kirkbymoorside]

IATA member airline list here:
http://www.iata.org/about/members/Pages/airline-list.aspx?All=true

I do not see Flexflight listed.

Of course that does not mean that they do not have an IATA airline code...

[rutankrd]

Flexflight are a ticketing agent and consolidator for a number of obscure carriers and routes.

Including some of those doggy Swedish- Iraqi operations using Greek registered French owned 737s.

They even power behind the scenes some more significant carriers online booking engines including Icelands WOW Air and VLM

[davidjohnson6]

Flexflight (like Hahn Air) makes its money by operating as a booking engine and doing codeshares with tiny airlines all round the world.
Tiny airlines gets a website ready made and ticket distribution on GDS and accessible to travel agents worldwide. Flexflight takes a fee and puts its IATA code on all flights. Problem is that IATA require any 'airline' must actually operate flights under its own responsibility - thus a weekly Augsburg-Salzburg.

[HeartyMeatballs]

Interesting. I didn't know that. But come to think of it I have seen Hahn Air show up on Skyscanner. I'm sure it was Bristol - Channel Isles which I thought odd as they primarily operate biz jets.

[virginblue]

The flights you saw are sold under the HR designator so that they are available on CRS. Hahn Air operates only one route in its own right to meet, as mentioned above, the "airline" requirement. They have two weekly flights from DUS to LUX on a Cessna Citation, just like Flexflight.

Flexflight have been in the media in Germany because they initially planned to operate RBM-SZG and offerend flights on that route - without the knowledge of the airport. When an aviation enthusiast booked the flight and showed up at RBM airport, the airport refused to let the flight operate as a scheduled flight. So the passenger and the operator turned the flight to a charter flight on the spot . After that experience, the airline moved the flight to AGB. They don't really expect passengers as the route is quite useless, so it is quite a spectacle whenever an aviation buff throws some money at them and books a flight.

[01475]

FLN FRISIA-Luftverkehr GmbH: Die Inselflieger (http://www.inselflieger.de/) on their Estonian flights.