Air Seychelles is full of praise for the resilience of its DHC-6 Twin Otter fleet, which last year completed 1,400 charter missions in addition to 16,000 domestic scheduled trips between the Seychelles' Mahe and Praslin islands off the east coast of Africa. Having operated six of the type, a mixture of 300 and 400 versions, the two oldest remaining 300s were replaced with 400s early this year.

“Our oldest previous Twin Otters had at least 35 years' lifetime service,” states CEO Roy Kinnear. “They are a good workhorse for this environment. The fact that we have now got six Twin Otters with the oldest being six years old sets us up well for the next 20 years or more.

“The type, with the Pratt & Whitney engines that we operate on them, seems to be ideally suited to the climate and the wear and tear of a Praslin flight, which is 15 minutes long. When you are running anything between 75 and 95 flights a day to and from Praslin, that's a lot of flights. It's every 10 to 15 minutes and then they wind down to two per hour or one per hour in the off-peak middle of the afternoon. With such a high frequency of takeoffs and landings, the Twin Otter is a very good reliable aircraft that suits the terrain.”

Charter flights are booked mostly by destination management companies to Praslin or some of the other islands within the Seychelles archipelago. The company flies daily charter services to Bird, Dennis and D'Arros Islands (Bird and Dennis are 'one hotel' islands). “Sometimes we will do charters for the hotel, but some of them are just standalone charters,” Kinnear continues.

Fixed landing gear is another advantage of the DHC-6. “If you are operating a flight to Praslin you don't have to worry about deploying landing gear for takeoff and landing,” he explains. “It has a high wing and has STOL facility, making it suitable. We have found the Pratt & Whitney engines are incredibly reliable and make for a great combination in this high frequency situation, especially in the year-round heat.”