Swiss carrier, Helvetic Airways, operated an unprecedented flight to West Africa with an Embraer E190 E2 on Tuesday as part of a repatriation operation. The flight, which took over 6 hours to complete, put the Embraer E190-E2's capabilities to the test.
Helvetic Airways Embraer E190-E2 registered HB-AZB. Photo by Dario Duppenthaler | AeroNewsX
The flight took place on Tuesday and was 6 hours and 22 minutes long. The aircraft connected Zurich, Switzerland with Accra, Ghana, Onboard the Embraer E190-E2 were three pilots, four cabin crew and one flight engineer.
The aircraft proceeded to Abidjan and Ouagadougou and brought a total of 46 passengers back to Europe including 24 from Switzerland.
Normally, Embraer aircraft are deployed on more regional routes - reflecting its small capacity (in comparison to the Airbus A320 for example). Indeed, an aircraft's capabilities are not always reflected on the routes they are deployed on - simply because sometimes it doesn't make commercial sense. An airline's main aim would be to maximise the efficiency of an aircraft by finding a route that is perfect for the given plane.
However, these are unprecedented times. The Embraer E190-E2's range stands at 2,850nm, therefore making it possible to operate the approximately 2,500nm trip to Accra. The aircraft proceeded to operate the direct flight from Ouagadougou back to Zurich yesterday. The aforementioned service took just over 5 hours to complete.
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