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Air Canada and Air Georgian have recently ended their contract to operate Air Canada Express flights in western Canada and this fleet has been retired. Alex’s video describes his opportunity to experience a ride on this tiny workhorse aircraft. It is quite interesting to hear him describe settling his 6’ 8” frame into his seat. The Beechcraft 1900 entered service in September 1982 as a regional turboprop airliner and quickly provided to be a versatile aircraft and operated in passenger, cargo and executive configurations. The aircraft was successfully employed to open many routes for destinations with smaller airports and short runways but may have been somewhat a victim of its own success as these new routes grew to require larger regional jets and Raytheon ended production in October 2002. The most popular variant is the 1900D which was a substantial redesign with a taller cabin to accommodate people like Alex. Wikipedia lists three Canadian operators of the 1900C and 1900D, Central Mountain Air, Air Georgian and Pacific Coastal Airlines, in Canada. However, Evas Air shows that it is still operating 7 of these aircraft in Eastern Canada as Air Canada Express. The aircraft in Alex’s video, registration C-GHGA, shows that it was delivered to Air Alliance (pictured in header) in 1997 and flew, until recently, for Air Georgian in Air Canada Express livery. FlightAware lists its last flight operated flight ZX7230 from Medicine Hat to Calgary on April 27, 2019. |
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