Classic British Flight Sim

Some of you may remember last year I posted my holiday snaps from Antwerp. I had persuaded my significant other this would be a nice place to visit so I could get on a derivative of my favourite "classic, non-British" aeroplane and the first aircraft I ever flew on (the Fokker 27), the Fokker F50, with VLM. Sadly between my booking and my travel date, VLM went bust, again and so I ended up flying via BRU in a CSeries.

This year, the service between ANR and LCY has been resurrected by a new company, Air Antwerp, jointly owned by KLM and CityJet and run by the last CEO of VLM using just a single Fokker F50 leased from Amapola Flyg who bought the remaining Fokkers from the liquidators of VLM. No holiday snaps this time (maybe I'll post some good ones later if there's interest? - did visit Ghent in addition to Antwerp this year), but here's a video of my flight to London City in the Fokker 50 for those who might be inerested


https://youtu.be/3t7e4tMO-Po

Edit - photos now on page 2

Brilliant! The F27 is one of my favourite aircraft but I never had chance to fly on the 50.

Thank you for posting, great video.

ATB


Allan

Thank you for sharing your video, Toby!

Brian

Many thanks Toby for sharing that flight with us, I have got the F50 for X-Plane so this was extra treat. Still getting used to flying it but having many good flights.

Regards
Nigel.

Superb and glad you got to finally fly in one.
I managed to fly with VLM 3 days before they went under again and have also booked with Air Antwerp in February.

Hopefully this new venture will survive.

Nigel - there is I believe an Air Antwerp paint for the XPlane one - I saw it on their Instagram or FB page.

CB - It was about 2/3 full. Monday afternoon flight, which I cannot imagine to be the busiest. It's a single dry leased aircraft from Amapola Flyg (OO-VLS) and a fairly lean operation from the looks of it, backed by KLM and CityJet with KLM code shares and for the time being, only the best route (ANR-LCY-ANR) so if a success can be made again, I think this has the best ingredients. Previous VLM incarnations were trying to serve backwater routes in parts of Germany and Slovenia. None of that this time and hopefully no nasty boardroom scuffles again either!

VLM was such a great airline but as soon as Air France got involved, it started going downhill. Just like the Air France KLM mix, it's only KLM that really makes any money.

When the Chinese then got involved, it looked great from the outside but having read a lengthy article in Dutch as to what went on, it got really messy. The Chinese lost interest and pulled all investment and down it went again.
As you say, the route network was simply bizarre but hopefully focusing on the ANR route, especially as Stobart/Flybe have now dropped it, will do the trick.

I remember in 2007/2008 when VLM had 18 Fokker 50's and were so busy that they also utilised 2 or 3 Denim Air Fokker 50's (owned by Panta Holdings as was VLM). They had 12 rotations from LCY to AMS per day not to mention routes to LPL, MAN etc.

Great days and I miss working with them.

I think we read the same article in De Tijd by the sounds of it! Be careful who you go into business with is the moral of the story there I think.

I'm hoping this is here to stay. The second most popular route was to Zürich, so I wouldn't be at all averse to them reacquiring a second Fokker and restarting that one too. Question is what on earth should replace the Fokker and for me, it's a large chunk of the appeal!

Nigel - there is I believe an Air Antwerp paint for the XPlane one - I saw it on their Instagram or FB page.

Thanks Tony, will have a look for it tomorrow.

Regards
Nigel.