Good morning from Calgary International Airport!
My name is Alex, and welcome to another trip report.
Today, I’m flying up to Edmonton with Air Canada Express,
operated by Jazz Aviation on their De Havilland Canada Dash 8-100.
The Dash 8-100 is the smallest variant of the Dash 8 family, seating just 37 passengers.
Several operators have flown these on behalf of Air Canada since the late 1980s,
but until the end of October this year, they only flew out of Eastern Canada.
The remaining Dash 8-100s are planned to be retired by mid-2020, so this winter,
they’ve moved out west and switched places with the larger 50-seat Dash 8-300s, like
the one I flew on in May.
As I understand it, some of the Dash 8-300s are undergoing a life extension program in Halifax.
That’s why the -100s were sent here for the winter to cover some flights out of Calgary,
Edmonton, and Vancouver.
Since Air Georgian’s Beechcraft contract ended in April,
these are now the smallest aircraft with Air Canada branding flying in the west.
Our gate for today is gate 39, and here’s my aircraft for today’s flight, arriving
from Medicine Hat.
C-FGQK is a 29-year-old Dash 8-100 that was originally delivered to Air Ontario in 1990.
Like all of my regional flights within Alberta, I booked this flight as a basic economy fare,
so that unfortunately means I’m stuck in zone 3 for boarding.
But without further ado, let’s see what the Dash 8-100 is like.
My seat for this short flight is 4F.
Row 4 on the Dash 8-100 is an emergency exit row, so the legroom here is pretty decent.
The cabin itself looks a bit dated, but not too bad at all.
I’ll save the rest for after takeoff as usual, so here’s our departure from Calgary,
off of runway 17R.
After that scenic departure, and view of Calgary Airport, let’s take a look at the rest of the cabin.
The seats on this Dash 8-100 are identical to those on the -300s,
so the tray table is a bit low but it does the job.
In the seatback pocket, Air Canada Express has a safety card,
… buy-on-board menu,
… air sickness bag,
… and their inflight magazine.
According to this, Air Canada is down to just 6 Dash 8-100s in the Express fleet.
I’m pretty glad to be flying on one today!
One thing I do want to mention is, while I was in Edmonton that day, I met up with fellow
aviation YouTuber, Vuelogs!
He’s got great trip reports from all over the world, as well as here in Canada,
and you should definitely go check out his channel!
I’ll leave a link on screen, and in the description below.
On this flight, as with most of these regional Dash 8 routes,
we received a complimentary bag of pretzels and a drink.
Like I said earlier, Air Canada’s Dash 8-100s seat 37 passengers in a 2-2 configuration,
but the last row of the cabin actually seats 5 across.
That middle seat,
or row 10 as Air Canada calls it, looks to have pretty much infinite legroom!
I do realize Dash 8s aren’t the most spotless aircraft at the best of times,
and although they’re being retired soon, this isn’t a great look.
Otherwise though, there’s not much else to say, but I do love flying in Alberta on
a clear day like today!
That clear weather doesn’t seem to apply to the greater Edmonton area though,
as we start our descent for a cloudy arrival on runway 12.
Overall, this was a pretty decent flight.
On a turboprop, Calgary to Edmonton is just long enough for a drink service,
so it’s a good route for crossing off new aircraft types, like I did today.
While we’re fortunate enough to have the Dash 8-100s here for the next few months,
they’ll no doubt be missed in other parts of the country,
and it remains to be seen exactly what Air Canada’s long term plan is for aircraft
with less than 50 seats.
For the most part, Air Canada’s been replacing these smaller aircraft with the larger
Dash 8-300s and -400s,
but there’s only so many routes that they can do that on.
The Dash 8-300s only seat 13 more people, so it’s an okay replacement for the moment,
but they can’t fly forever.
It might sound strange, but the retirement of these 37-seat Dash 8s
might be the end of an era for regional Canadian flying.
It’ll be interesting to see what they decide, but for now,
I’m very glad I had the chance to fly on the smallest Dash 8!
Thank you very much for watching this trip report with Air Canada Express.
If you enjoyed the video, please leave a thumbs up, consider subscribing if you’re new,
and I’ll see you in the next one.