Saint Helena Island to get air service

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globetrotter
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Saint Helena Island to get air service

Post by globetrotter »

BA's South African franchise Comair will be the first airline to fly to the Island sitting almost midway between Africa and South America, they will fly nonstop from Johannesburg with 737 once weekly.

http://www.facebook.com/sainthelenainde ... 6130771421
Last edited by globetrotter on 08 Jun 2018, 18:19, edited 2 times in total.

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sn26567
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Post by sn26567 »

St Helena Airport

Work is progressing fast to complete an airport for the remote South Atlantic island of St Helena, a British Overseas Territory, perhaps even better known as the final residence of Napoleon. Previously the island has only been linked to the African mainland, 1200 miles away by ship.

The first scheduled flight is planned for May 2016. The single runway is 6,397ft (1,950m) long and will allow Airbus A320 and Boeing 737/757 aircraft, plus the military C-130 Hercules, to fly in, but will preclude any Category D aircraft, such as the Boeing 767.

A new AvGeek destination when completed!
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Re: British Airways first airline to St.Helena Island

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The eagle has landed! On 18th april 2016, a Comair Boeing 737-800 (ZS-ZWG) did the first commercial flight from Johannesburg to St Helena. The aircraft did two planned go-arounds before landing. Comair is British Airways' franchisee in South Africa.




and


globetrotter
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Re: British Airways first airline to St.Helena Island

Post by globetrotter »

Oh they got scimitar winglets, BA should change policy on franchice partners wearing their livery, instead of BA title it should have been COMAIR, over all livery can stay same.

Airport Terminal is cool, saw it on another site.

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Re: British Airways first airline to St.Helena Island

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Passenger wrote:The eagle has landed! On 18th april 2016, a Comair Boeing 737-800 (ZS-ZWG) did the first commercial flight from Johannesburg to St Helena. The aircraft did two planned go-arounds before landing. Comair is British Airways' franchisee in South Africa.




and

It seems that the above flights didn't went as smoothly as initially reported. The Governor (St Helena Government) has released this statement yesterday:

STATEMENT FROM GOVERNOR LISA PHILLIPS

... Press reports in the UK and elsewhere that describe St Helena Airport as being ‘scrapped’, ‘mothballed’ or ‘postponed indefinitely’ are incorrect. The situation remains as in our last update. This is that there are wind shear challenges on one runway (20, the northern approach) which means larger planes (eg. 737-800) cannot currently land safely. We are collecting wind data which will allow larger planes to land on this runway, but this will take some time. Wind shear is a factor at several airports around the world, including London City Airport, where safe landings happen every day.

... In the meantime, we are working hard to identify an interim flight solution that can land on our second runway (02, from the south). There is no wind shear on this second runway, but there is a tailwind. We have identified aircraft types which can land in these conditions, and airlines that have such planes – and we are now exploring the specific availability of aircraft with these airlines.

... The Airport is certified and open, as demonstrated by the emergency medevac flight last Saturday when we were able to fly a sick baby to Cape Town. Naturally, we will keep the public informed as we have been doing.

Governor Lisa Phillips - SHG - 10th June 2016

http://www.sainthelena.gov.sh/st-helena-airport-2/

Report of the above medical flight by ZS-KGS (Dassault Falcon 20):
http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2016/0 ... cuate-baby

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Re: British Airways first airline to St. Helena Island

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Very strange that those constant wind shears were not identified BEFORE building the airport. The official opening of the airport is now postponed to a later date. It might be open for emergency flights, but I doubt commercial flights will start any time soon.
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Re: British Airways first airline to St. Helena Island

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Atlantic Star Airlines (St Helena) cancelled the proposed October 2016 services between the UK and St. Helena due to continued uncertainty regarding flight operations on to runway 20 at St. Helena.
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Re: British Airways first airline to St. Helena Island

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An interesting article on why regular service to St. Helena will have to wait. It includes a video on the landing of the first Comair/British Airways 737-800 flight, showing the impressive wind shear effects.

http://allplane.tv/airports-news/2016/6 ... ts-airport
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Re: British Airways first airline to St. Helena Island

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Luchtvaartnieuws.nl: The Belgian air broker The Aviation Factory was the first one ever to fly tourists into Saint Helena via a business jet. The Aviation Factory hired a South African Bombardier Challenger 300 for a four hour flight from Togo to Saint Helena Airport.

"...De Belgische vliegtuigbroker The Aviation Factory heeft voor het eerst toeristen per zakenjet naar Sint Helena gevlogen. Sinds kort is het kleine eiland bij Zuid-Afrika door de lucht te bereiken door de aanleg van een luchthaven. Volgens The Aviation Factory heeft zij met de vlucht een primeur in handen. Er werden al wel lijnvluchten uitgevoerd naar het eiland, door British Airways-dochter Comair. Sint Helena, bekend vanwege de ballingschap van Napolean, kent slechts een handvol inwoners en was tot voor kort afhankelijk van schepen voor het transport. Een door The Aviation Factory ingehuurde Zuid-Afrikaanse Bombardier Challenger 300 vervoerde vorige week drie toeristen van Togo naar Saint Helena Airport, tijdens een vlucht van vier uur..."

Source:
http://www.luchtvaartnieuws.nl/nieuws/c ... int-helena



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Re: British Airways first airline to St. Helena Island

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Atlantic Star Airlines (St Helena) plans to use an Avro RJ100 with extra tanks, instead of the B737-800 operated by TUIfly (Germany), as the carrier is switching to Runway 02 on the island.
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Re: British Airways first airline to St. Helena Island

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St Helena RJ100 tech-stop

An Avro RJ100 jet aircraft operated by Tronos Jet Maintenance and carrying two Atlantic Star Airlines personnel among the passengers has successfully conducted a technical stop at the troubled St Helena Airport as part of a delivery flight to a customer in Chile.

Officials reported the aircraft performed a smooth landing from the south on Runway 02 and after disembarking passengers took off again, completed a circuit, and performed an equally smooth landing from the north on Runway 20.

The 13 specially-invited passengers included Richard Brown and Aiden Walsh of Atlantic Star Airlines, one of several potential partners interested in operating regular flights to St Helena.

Plans earlier this year to open the airport to commercial traffic were shelved over concerns about windshear. St Helena says intensive work is continuing to deal with this.

The island government said: “Getting this right and putting in place a scheduled passenger service involves complex work and will take some time. While the focus of everyone’s work is to resolve these issues at the earliest possible opportunity, safety remains paramount.”

The Tronos flight will give the airport more real-time data and a pilot’s report as part of building a comprehensive picture of the conditions.

Source: BTN
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Re: British Airways first airline to St. Helena Island

Post by globetrotter »

Apparently 737-700 and A318/319 are right for the conditions or even L-100/C-130, someone suggested flights from only Ascunsion using regional jet types, dont know why the direct link to Johannesburg is necessary, why not Cape Town or some closer African city.

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Re: British Airways first airline to St. Helena Island

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sn26567 wrote:St Helena RJ100 tech-stop

An Avro RJ100 jet aircraft operated by Tronos Jet Maintenance and carrying two Atlantic Star Airlines personnel among the passengers has successfully conducted a technical stop at the troubled St Helena Airport as part of a delivery flight to a customer in Chile.

Officials reported the aircraft performed a smooth landing from the south on Runway 02 and after disembarking passengers took off again, completed a circuit, and performed an equally smooth landing from the north on Runway 20.

The 13 specially-invited passengers included Richard Brown and Aiden Walsh of Atlantic Star Airlines, one of several potential partners interested in operating regular flights to St Helena.

Plans earlier this year to open the airport to commercial traffic were shelved over concerns about windshear. St Helena says intensive work is continuing to deal with this.

The island government said: “Getting this right and putting in place a scheduled passenger service involves complex work and will take some time. While the focus of everyone’s work is to resolve these issues at the earliest possible opportunity, safety remains paramount.”

The Tronos flight will give the airport more real-time data and a pilot’s report as part of building a comprehensive picture of the conditions.

Source: BTN
... and an interesting side fact was that both cockpit crew were Atlantic Airways (Faroe Islands) pilots.
I´m sure those who planned the stop really knew where to look for suitable pilots ...


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Re: British Airways first airline to St. Helena Island

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New trial: St Helena Government announces a tender to procure an air service provider or providers to the Island of St Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. Bids are due 27 January 2017.

Image

Background information:
http://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news/ ... d-services
http://airinsight.com/2016/12/09/st-helena-tries/
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Re: British Airways first airline to St. Helena Island

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UK lawmakers lambast new St. Helena airport

An influential UK parliamentary committee has described as “a fiasco” the building of a £285 million airport on the remote UK South Atlantic possession of St. Helena. The airport has been discovered to be unusable to commercial flights by wind shear on the approach.

The tiny island, some 1,100 miles off the coast of southwest Africa, has hitherto had a mailboat that visits once every three weeks as its sole means of communication with the outside world. The island’s economy in recent years has been faltering and building an airport was deemed to be the best way to stimulate both the general economy and tourism to the island.

Comair, a South African British Airways franchise holder, plans to serve the island with a weekly flight from Johannesburg, using a Boeing 737-800.

However, early trial flights discovered wind shear problems on the northerly approach to Runway 20; aircraft landing from the southerly approach (Runway 02) have to cope with a habitual tailwind.

The island’s administration has said that an extensive research program is underway to understand the problem and offer a solution that will allow scheduled flights to begin.

However, in its report, the UK parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said it was “staggering” that the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID), which funded the project, had not foreseen the wind shear problem, given that descriptions of the phenomenon had been recorded by the evolutionary theory scientist Charles Darwin as early as 1836.

Full story in ATWonline: http://atwonline.com/airports-routes/uk ... na-airport
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Re: British Airways first airline to St. Helena Island

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"No Big Deal To Land Here”- says Embraer ERJ-190 Test Pilot.



Transcript of the interview with the Embraer test pilot, some photo's and comments from readers:
https://whatthesaintsdidnext.com/2016/1 ... re-normal/

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photo: https://whatthesaintsdidnext.com

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Re: British Airways first airline to St. Helena Island

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Airlink for St Helena?

Johannesburg-based regional carrier Airlink is hoping to add St Helena to its network using a new fleet of Embraer jets it is assembling under a modernisation plan to allow it to fly to more long-distance destinations.

The privately-owned company said it was replacing its short-haul fleet with a new line-up that would include five Embraer E-Jets, which it said it would begin receiving in the first quarter of 2017, and 11 Embraer ERJ 140s with greater range.

Airlink CEO Rodger Foster said the acquisition of the E-Jets was aimed specifically at replacing the airline’s fleet of Avro RJ85 aircraft, as the E-Jets “offer significantly more range than our RJs”.

Another advantage was that the E-Jets also offered superior short field, hot and high, and wet runway operational performance, he added.

The St Helena government has requested South African carriers, including SAA, to bid to begin service to the isolated island from this May. Island-based Atlantic Star Airlines also wants to start international flights.

The new airport on the island has been deemed too risky for use by large aircraft, due to unforeseen problems with windshear, which are still being investigated.

Source: BTNews
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Re: Which airline to St. Helena Island ?

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Atlantic Star Airlines (St Helena) announces a further jet aircraft familiarization flight to St Helena, this time on a B757-200 operated by TAG Aviation (UK).
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Re: Which airline to St. Helena Island ?

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sn26567 wrote: 03 Mar 2017, 20:58 Atlantic Star Airlines (St Helena) announces a further jet aircraft familiarization flight to St Helena, this time on a B757-200 operated by TAG Aviation (UK).
ATLANTIC STAR POSTPONES FAMILIARISATION FLIGHT
March 4, 2017

The Boeing 757 familiarisation flight to St.Helena planned to be operated by TAG Aviation on Monday 6 March 2017 has had to be postponed. This is because of an operational need that has arisen during the trip that the aircraft is currently engaged on with one of TAG Aviation’s clients.

Whilst the postponement will come as a disappointment to many people wishing to see the Boeing 757 aircraft land at St.Helena it is the correct decision and reflects the very high standards of customer service that TAG Aviation has at the core of its business values. Given the busy timetable of the aircraft it is not yet known when the familiarisation will be re-scheduled for, but it is likely to be some months from now.

The teams at Atlantic Star Airlines and TAG Aviation remain committed to the Boeing 757 familiarisation flight and are focused on the positive aspect of the exercise - that the work carried out on building the operational safety case, trip planning and crew training remain in place such that the opportunity can be revisited when the time is right.

The Basil Read team at St.Helena Airport have been extremely helpful and we would like to thank them for their hard work in supporting the flight and hope to be able to capitalise on that effort and demonstrate the excellent facilities available at St.Helena Airport and its suitability for Boeing 757 operations.
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