American Airlines recently completed its last propeller-driven flight, ending an era dating back to the beginning of commercial air service.
Inc reports that American Eagle Flight 4297 from Charlotte, NC, to Salisbury, Maryland, on July 3, 2018, marked the final non-jet flight operated by a major US carrier.
The 97-minute flight utilised the once ubiquitous Bombardier Dash 8-300 turboprop.
Delta Air Lines and United Airlines have already retired their fleets of propeller-driven aircraft, while Southwest Airlines has always exclusively flown variants of the Boeing 737 jetliner.
“American was the [airline] that held out the longest. Why? Because American (and its predecessors via US Airways) serves a lot of small towns,” according to The Cranky Flier blog.
“The Dash 8 had the right mix of economics and aircraft size, but even that had to end eventually. The aircraft started reaching the end of their lives, and maintenance kept getting more expensive.”
Of course, if you’re nostalgic for the sensation of cramped, bumpy, low-altitude flight, there are still a number of smaller US airlines flying prop-driven aircraft, including Alaska Airlines and Cape Air, whose smallest plane is a nine-seat Cessna.
