For many people, turboprop aircraft are synonymous with short regional flights that are over as soon as they begin. While such planes rarely make the headlines for having outstanding comfort levels, they serve a more pragmatic role where most passengers are not on board for long enough to need to worry about an extra inch of legroom here or there. With that being said, they do also see occasional usage on longer flights lasting hours.
Europe is an interesting case study when it comes to such operations. According to present scheduling data made available by Cirium, an aviation analytics company, there are 45 flights scheduled with turboprop aircraft this December whose distance exceeds the 800-mile (1,287.5 km) mark).
One-Off Itineraries Are Europe’s Longest Turboprop Flights This December
The longest two of these routes are both one-off operations rather than regular flights, and, interestingly, both of them serve Malta (MLA). The first is a round trip from Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden (FKB) in Germany, which will be operated by Luxwing using a 78-seat Dash 8-Q400 aircraft. Departing on December 28 and returning the following day, passengers on these 949-mile (1,527.3 km) flights can expect block times of around two hours.
Even longer than this route is the 1,038-mile (16,70.5 km) route from Luxembourg (LUX) to Malta, which flag carrier Luxair will serve using the Dash 8-Q400 on December 20. That Saturday, Cirium’s scheduling data suggests that the airline plans to operate two round trips with its 76-seat turboprops, with block times of three hours and 10 minutes outbound and three hours and 35 minutes inbound. Commenting on its Dash 8 fleet, Luxair says:
“This model has greater flexibility for take-off and landing over short distances, making it the most suitable and efficient aircraft for developing our destinations network across most of Europe.”
Luxair Also Has A More Regular 800+ Mile Turboprop Route
While both of those routes are very much one-off affairs in terms of their days of operation, Luxair also has a regularly scheduled Dash 8 route that exceeds the 800-mile mark this December. Its destination is Stockholm Arlanda Airport (ARN), which is located 836 miles (1,345.4 km) away from Luxembourg.
This December, Luxair plans to serve this route 10 times in each direction with its Dash 8-Q400 twin turboprop airliners, with two return flights a week on Fridays and Sundays throughout the month and additional rotations on Tuesday, December 23 and 30. These flights have block times of two hours and 45 minutes.
According to present fleet data made available by aeroLOPA, Luxair configures its Dash 8-Q400 aircraft with 76 seats in a flexible two-class layout. This allows the carrier to accommodate varying business class loads by blocking one seat per pair on a certain number of rows and positioning the dividing curtain accordingly. The seats in question are examples of the B/E Aerospace Model-945, and they are 16.8 inches wide with a 31-inch pitch.
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The Best Of The Rest
Elsewhere in Europe, three more airlines are operating turboprop routes longer than 800 miles this December. The only one to involve the ATR 72, as pictured above, is the Iberia Regional service from Gran Canaria (LPA) to Melilla (MLN), a Spanish exclave in northern Africa. These 889-mile (1,430.7 km) flights are operated weekly on Saturdays by Medavia on behalf of Iberia Regional, with block times of up to four hours flying to Gran Canaria.
Far to the north, two different airlines operate turboprops on the 874-mile route between Nuuk (GOH) in Greenland and Reykjavík–Keflavík Airport (KEF) in Iceland. Icelandair has penciled in three round trips towards the end of the month, operated by Air Iceland Connect’s 76-seat Dash 8-400 aircraft. These will operate on December 21, 28, and 30, and passengers can expect block times of up to two hours and 45 minutes.
Air Greenland is also present on this route, using even smaller 37-seat Dash 8-200 aircraft. This December, the carrier has curiously scheduled four flights from Keflavík to Nuuk with these turboprops, but only one from Nuuk to Keflavík. In any case, the block times are longer, at up to three hours and 20 minutes.
