Hi, dear flight-report members and readers!
In this short retro-FR I'd like to present a review of an old ATR42-500 on a EasyFly short domestic hop in Colombia from Cartagena (CTG) to Bukaramanga (BGA), taken on 20 February 2018.
Intro
Back in early 2018 EasyFly (VE) was a small turboprop domestic Colombian carrier with the fleet of 14 BAe Jetstream 41s, 6 ATR42-500s (with some of them built in late 1990s) and 2 ATR42-600s. From October 2018 VE started to introduce newish ATR72-600s into the fleet.
From August 2023 the airline reinvented itself by rebranding into Clic (with the same IATA code VE), ditching all the AT45s and introducing one more AT76 and quite a number of AT46. Currently Clic's fleet consists of 7 AT76s and 12 AT46s.
Thus, my FR is kind of tribute to the old EasyFly and to its bygone part of the fleet.
AT45 is the most popular member of the ATR42 family. The number of its operators is still very significant, but their fleets are small - no larger than 6 units.
Cartagena De Indias Rafal Nunez Airport (CTG)
CTG airport is located very close to the gem of Colombia - the old city of Cartagena. In 2018 there was no public transport to the old city, but the taxis were cheap due to short distance.
CTG has single terminal, relatively modern and quite compact, with no jetbridges. Despite of seemingly smallness of the airport, it receives some widebody longhaul flights from EU: KLM flight AMS-BOG-CTG-AMS, mostly operated by B78X and Edelweiss flight ZRH-BOG-CTG-ZRH, operated by A343 (which I reviewed on CPT-ZRH flight), which soon will be replaced by very comfortable ex-LATAM A359s on this route. CTG is not only a popular destination due to Cartagena's heritage and Caribbean coast, but also a refueling stop for these longhaul flights because of the high altitude of BOG (well, A343, in contrast to B78X, has legs for nonstop BOG-EU, but BOG+CTG combination is profitable for WK).
The Aircraft
My domestic hop from Cartagena to Bucaramanga was operated by old 1998-built HK-5219 in Y48 layout. It served in VE fleet only 3 years from 2017 to 2020. Boarding was via walkways from the gate, no need for bus boarding in CTG.
The rear door serves as a stair, being opened down.
The Cabin
The cabin consisted of 48 seats in the standard 2-2 layout.
A couple of cabin views during boarding:
The crew's seats near the pilot's door.
The Economy Seat
My seat 11A was located after the wing. The seat had very decent padding, "leather" upholstery, tray table and seat pocket. The row pitch was OK for a short flight.
The seatpocket content: safety card and inflight magazine.
The overhead panel.
The overhead bins.
The Flight
An inflight cabin view.
Tour de lavatoirie.
View of the Colombian mountaineous landscapes during descent to BGA.
The Aircraft After The Flight
The last glance at the rear door-stair of AT45.
Thank you for your attention and see you in the next FRs!
Thanks for the report! I flew Clic last year and wondered about their origins, thanks for shedding some light on the predecessor. In many ways domestic flying around Colombia (and the Americas as a whole) has become a lot more standardised than ~10 years ago. Better for safety, but a shame I missed those Jetstream 41's!
Thanks for the comment! In my trip to Colombia in 2018 I was also planning to fly a Jetstream on BOG-PEI, but VE swapped it to AT45, similar to the one in this FR. COVID and post-covid times changed a lot in Colombian aviation. For example, Avianca became much more dull than it was before (in the 2018 trip I also flew AV A321 with recliner business and economy with Weber 5751 seats with IFE. Now all these A321s and A21Ns as well are long gone from AV fleet.