As I never had the chance to fly on a Saab 2000 and heard that it´s an interesting plane, I took the chance to fly it on the short OLT leg HAM-BRE, which is the last leg of their Airbus-shuttle flight BRS-HAM-BRE. It used to be only for Airbus employees, but now it is available to anyone for a fixed price of 64 Euros including taxes. I booked it only one day in advance as I had a day off and thought this would be a good chance to fly this bird.
So in the morning I went to the airport and already on my way there I was wondering whether any other fool would join me on this leg. At the airport, I looked at the screens to find out where the check-in would be, but flight OL 888 to BRE was the only one without a gate number. So I went to the OLT/Swissport ticket desk and asked. I was indeed the only passenger and a nice lady took me to the check-in counter which she opened just for me. She assigned me seat 2A and asked me to meet her at Gate 27 after 15 minutes. So I went through the security check - and also, for just this intra-German flight, through passport control. I was wondering what that was supposed to mean but then I realised that the passengers from BRS who went on to BRE would need to show their passports in BRE, and as I joined the flight I would need to do so as well. Then I took some pictures of the HAM apron, for example this one:



After a while, I saw my plane land and then boarded at the gate and the lady took me to my personal bus which took me to the apron. I saw about 10-15 pax disembark from the plane. Now I boarded and I was met by the surprised faces of the other pax on board of which I counted 11. The flight attendant closed the door and the engines were started (I love that sound of prop engines on startup).

Date: Monday, January 22, 2007 / 11.00 h
Flight No.: OL 888, (BRS)-HAM-BRE
Airline: OLT (Ostfriesische Lufttransport-Gesellschaft)
Aircraft: Saab 2000
Registration: D-AOLA
Flight time: 20 minutes
Seat: 2A

During the short taxi, the flight attendant came to me and gave me some personal safety instructions. As I have flown a lot of times, I was super cool and acted like a very experienced guy who knows all that stuff. After she finished without me listening and thinking how pointless this was, I noticed that I had forgotten to turn my cellphone off.... We lined up for takeoff, and after a SN Avro, we departed. The Saab 2000 has lots of power and took off like a rocket. Here´s a picture I took right after takeoff:



After a quick climb, the plane remained at a rather low cruising altitude. As we were flying close to the clouds, the speed seemed incredibly high. This is the view from my window:



The Saab 2000 is rather quiet and the flight was smooth. Such a shame that this high-tech bird never achieved the success it could have had. The interior (I think the OLT Saabs are ex-Crossair) was good, with those blue leather seats. Then, after a short cruise, the descent began, with only a few bumps. We flew over the Weser river:



Landing was smooth, too. It seemed very fast, and the pilots deccelerated very fiercely, using both the brakes and the thrust reversers. When I deboarded, I took a Wirtschaftswoche magazine with me for the train ride back home. From the apron, I took some more pictures:

The impressive engine:


D-AOLA, viewed from the bus:


Then I went through passport control to finish this short international but intra-German flight. I saw that the next tram to the central station would leave in 7 minutes, so I went to the visitors´ terrace (free entry, nice view) for some pictures:

Here´s D-COLT, an OLT Metro III which I flew on ZRH-BRE last year (see my trip report for that flight: ZRH-BRE trip report



Then I took the tram to the central station and from there the regional "metronom" train back to Hamburg.

Overall, this little trip was interesting and added both a new aircraft type and a new, exotic route to my flight statistics.

Nice report and pictures! I have never flown on the SAAB 2000, but I hope to sometime.

767747

Great pics and report. Nice to see the Saab still going strong 

Gosh, that is what I call a treat, Mr Ham!

A personal check-in. A Personal boarder. A personal bus and a nice wee flight too. Must have felt a bit like owning your own plane or something!

Quoting Door5right (Reply 3): Must have felt a bit like owning your own plane or something!

Well - I had to share the plane with 11 other people who were already on board from the BRS-HAM leg, and all of them were staring at me. I don´t think that´s what it feels like to own an airplane! The rest of the trip felt very personal and exclusive, of course.

An unusual routing, thanks for posting this report! The Saab 2000 is one of my favourite planes, a pity that Crossair/SWiss don't have them in their fleet any more. By the way, the OLT Saabs are indeed ex-LX, D-AOLA being ex-HB-IZE. I like those short trips just for flying on a certain airline/aircraft combination - reminds me of my STR-NUE flight on the HF A310. Keep posting those reports!
Regards, Alex.

Quoting Ndebele (Reply 5): reminds me of my STR-NUE flight on the HF A310.

Was that a ferry flight which you managed to join inofficially or did they offer it for booking?

Nice report about a short flight. The Saab 2000 is my favorite turboprop, by a wide margin! I was fortunate enough to fly on the "Concordino" with LX (it was still Crossair at the time) on BSL-THF back in 2000. I remember thinking at the time "this is the 757 of turboprops!"

Quoting HAM (Reply 6): Quoting Ndebele (Reply 5): reminds me of my STR-NUE flight on the HF A310. Was that a ferry flight which you managed to join inofficially or did they offer it for booking?

This flight is part of the HF/AB-hub operation at NUE and can be booked individually. No A310's in use nowadays though.

BWT - nice little report.