General news

On 10 April 2021 Alliance Airlines has flown the first revenue service with Embraer ERJ 190. This also marks the beginning of the end of Fokker operations, but the final Alliance Fokker flight may be years ahead. 

The successor of Montenegro Airlines will be branded as Air Montenegro. Their current fleet plans to only include two Embraer ERJ 195s, so most probably the new airline means the end of the F100 in Montenegrin service. 

The Australian Competition Authority has granted permission to Alliance Airlines and Virgin Australia Airlines for cooperation on 39 domestic and two international routes. The basic idea is to increase efficiency and flexibility by using Alliance Fokkers on thinner Virgin routes. The permission is provisionally granted for two years.

The red eagle tail logo that we showed on Maandeeq Air 5Y-SMT (20177) in our January issue (#38), proves to be identical with what I-Fly Air of Kenya has on their website. The relationship between the two airlines is unknown to us.

Fokker F27, Fokker 50 & Fokker 60

Fokker F28, Fokker 70 & Fokker 100

The Historical Aviation Restoration Society (HARS) in Australia is the proud owner of two Friendships that were donated to them after the New Zealand Post office withdrew the type from service. Both F27s were recently adorned with HARS titles in dark green, as shown here on VH-EWH (10596). The younger sister ship VH-TQN (10680) is currently being restored to flying condition, so we can expect a Friendship back in the air in the coming years. (Peter Tomkinson of HARS Aviation Museum, Illawarra airport, Albion Park NSW, March 2021)

South Sudanese CityLink Africa Airways has become known as a new Fokker operator. Although the airline advertises as an air cargo company, they are also flying passenger services. The two pictures show 5Y-RNG (20120) in full Renegade Air livery with a large ‘operated by CityLink Africa Airways’ sticker next to the passenger door, so apparently Renegade does not operate this F50 themselves. (Mads Oyen, Juba, 22 April 2021 and CityLink Africa Airways at Facebook; Juba, 7 March 2021)

Another “new” F50 is 5Y-MMA (20145) with Salaam Air Express titles and the name ‘Jamila’ painted on the nose. Former SE-MFU was delivered in December 2020 to Silverstone Air Services. (VP AliEid on Twitter; Dhusamareb, 18 March 2021)

All-white F50 5Y-JXJ (20232) is almost 30 years old now and still in active service. It is believed to fly for Jubba Airways. (Mads Oyen, Juba, 21 April 2021)

Former Sky Aviation F50 PK-ECD (20271) is in use as an emergency trainer at Depati Amir airport on Bangka island, Indonesia, from at least December 2016. Since then, the airframe has lost its engines and undercarriage and now stands on trestles. It carries ‘Menumbing Air’ titles as well as the fake registration PK-MBG. (Kanggalon_spotters25 at Instagram, Pangkalan Baru, 21 March 2021)

A picture on Facebook shows this unidentified Maandeeq Air F50. Since the color scheme is different from all known Maandeeq Fokkers it must be either a new fleet addition or an aircraft that was recently repainted. Any help in identifying this airframe is welcome. (Mudugjournalist at Facebook, Dhusamareb, 12 April 2021)

When the Fokker company was still extant, they established their own maintenance school at Woensdrecht air base. Nowadays it is called Aircraft Maintenance & Training School, which belongs to the Curio regional vocational educations institute. The technical school owns two Fokkers as instructional airframes: one is F100 PH-OFF (11274) and on the right F28-4000 (11167) painted as PH-CHN, although its last registration was actually N800DH. (BNDeStem, Woensdrecht, September 2020)

The hull of Air Panama F100 HP-1894PST (11390) is stored in Mexico City for about one year now  in a rather stripped down condition. It is located outside the Mexicana MRO Services hangar at Lic. Benito Juárez airport, visible at Google Maps (19.443639, -99.069861). (Ricardo Mungarro, Mexico City, 6 March 2021)