Buffalo Airways Enters The Jet Age... 70 Years Late

Real World Aviation
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Buffalo Airway To Acquire A Boeing 737 Freighter.

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Source: Mickey McBryan

Buffalo Airways might be best known for their very old fleet, consisting of aircraft of over 60 years old which they fly all around Canada on cargo and passenger flights.

These aircraft include, but are not limited to Douglas DC-3/C-47s, Curtis C-46s and Lockheed Electras. The DC-3s/C-47s and C-46s having flown during World War 2 are workhorses for the airline, and the Electras were possibly the first fleet modernisation Buffalo went trough. But now, another type is entering their fleet, and it isn’t a piston or turboprop aircraft this time.

The Canadian airline has acquired a 35,5 year old Boeing 737-301(BDSF) according to Mikey McBryan, the Director of Operations and the son of the president of the airline, “Buffalo” Joe McBryan.

The 737 is question has a long record of operations. Built as a passenger aircraft and flying for the first time on the 1st of October 1986. It was delivered to Piedmont Airlines on the 16th of October that same year.

This aircraft then went on to USAir and US Airways as a passenger aircraft, before being converted to a freighter. After it’s conversion, it was delivered to TNT Airways on the 29th of September 2006 and then went on to Swiftair.

The aircraft, currently registered as 2-ESKA, has been stored at Bournemouth Hurn (BOH/EGHH) since August 2017, the assumption of being scrapped not being far off before Buffalo swooped in.

The 737 is expected to enter service this summer. No set destinations known yet, but it’ll be “coming to a paved runway near you”.

More about Buffalo Airways here:

More about the 737 (Classic) here:

Source video from Mickey McBryan:

If you have any idea on how to improve the topic, please do let me know, I’m not very good at this.

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Also saw that video earlier today 😅

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Rumor has it they originally phoned up McDonnell Douglas seeing if they had any DC-9s available but got confused when they got connected to Boeing instead and were told no, they don’t have any 737-200’s available either

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I saw the announcement yesterday. Got surprised no one made a topic about so I made this (mediocre) one.

@KTJ_Mitchell interesting. I did kind of wonder why they didn’t go for a -200 concidering they’re so popular in Canada with that gravel kit.

But they are pretty rare nowadays so it makes sense there aren’t any available.

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Now this is awesome! I’m very happy to see them order the B737F.

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That paved part sure is important, extra focus on it :)

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Sure is a surprise as well. Still technically an old aircraft, but to them this is like Lufthansa getting a Boom Overture considering the fact that they have no aircraft younger than 60 year old.

@ThePotato important indeed. Wouldn’t want to mistake this for a 737-200 ;) .

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Bring back Ice Pilots

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Would be awesome! Loved that show.

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behind that source: me who flew that in my P3D simulator and filmed it and took the screenshot for the thumbnail.

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Oh really? That’s cool.

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Well that’s an unexpected return for me

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Certainly unexpected. Especially considering the fact that this has been in the works for at least 8 or 9 months.

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Update:

We now know of two airports the 737-300 will fly out of. No destinations known yet (although most of their current destinations can be ruled out due to the fact that they do not have paved runways).

Yellowknife Airport (YZF/CYZF). Their main operating hub.

Edmonton International Airport (YEG/CYEG). A new airport to the Buffalo Airways roster (to my knowledge anyway).

Additionally, the aircraft is expected to fly to Yellowknife within the next 3 months.

More information:

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Right so there’s been a long pause with news, but the date that Buffalo expects this aircraft to be ready is fast approaching. As of now, the aircraft is still in Bournemouth’s maintenance hangar to my knowledge.

There has been no update to the date, so it should still be ready by the end of this summer.

According to Planespotters.net, the registration for the aircraft is already know (although it could still change). The 737 should be registered as C-FBAE. This registration has already had a history in Buffalo Airways’ fleet, being placed on a DC-3 that never actually flew with it, and earlier on a BAe 146-200 which flew for various Canadian airlines (although not Buffalo Airways).

What we can assume is that the aircraft will be painted in the Buffalo Airways livery.

Whenever more news comes, I’ll be sure to update this topic. Or if anyone else finds something, post it here yourself if you want.

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Slightly bumping this so the topic won’t get closed for when there’s actually news.

Alright so I suppose some good and bad news. Sorry to disappoint in advance.

  • Bad news being, the end-of-summer deadline wasn’t met, and no news of any progress is anywhere to be found (at least by me). I suppose the aircraft actually needed a lot more done than originally thought, since it of course hasn’t flown in 5 years.

  • Good news is that, even though there’s a lack of news, that also means there isn’t any indication Buffalo won’t take delivery of the 737 at all.

The only slight “update” I’ve found are two YouTube comments from Mikey on the original announcement video from about a month ago simply saying “update coming soon (when I have the Canadian arrival date)”. Clearly he hasn’t got any dates yet.

Apart from that, nothing to be found on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any Google searches. Nothing on either Buffalo’s or the Bournemouth based maintenance centre’s websites either.

As soon as Mikey or other sources release more info, I’ll be sure to post it here. Again, if you find anything yourself, please do post it here.

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Update time!

A small update just in time to not get this topic closed.

Mikey McBryan, the Director of Operations, has recently posted an image of their 737 undergoing maintenance still. I don’t know if this is a recent image or an older one, but either way this does mean the project is still going!

Comparing this to previous images/footage of the aircraft, it actually has engines now!

Captioned with: “Is it still considered a round engine? #ComingSoon”.

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