After a decade of service, Silver Airways (3M, Fort Lauderdale International) has operated its last Saab 340B(Plus) flight. The airline flew its final scheduled flight using the Saab (Sweden) turboprops on Sunday, September 4. Flying the last Saab service was N328AG (msn 428), a 24.9-year-old plane that operated flight 3M101 from Tortola to San Juan Luis Muñoz Marin. Flightradar24 ADS-B data shows that on Monday, September 5, it was then ferried to Springfield, MO via Orlando International on return to lessor Jetstream Aviation Capital.
"Thank you for flying with us today on this historic moment in Silver’s history as we bid farewell to our Saab 340B from our fleet," the airline said on social media. "We would like to thank the dedicated Team Members of Silver and Seaborne that operated these airplanes and our passengers for the past 10 years."
Since 2012, Silver Airways has flown 27 of the Saabs. According to the ch-aviation fleets module, 23 of the planes are now retired, two are inactive, and two have remained in service. The penultimate aircraft in service, N362AG (msn 438), was ferried to Orlando in the middle of last month.
The two in-active Saabs are N336AG (msn 436) and N350AG (msn 450). All four Saabs are at Silver Airways on operating leases from Jetstream Aviation Capital.
For much of the last decade, the Saabs comprised the core of Silver Airways' fleet. Numbers got an additional boost in 2018 when Silver Airways acquired Seaborne Airlines (BB, San Juan Luis Muñoz Marin) and picked up its eight Saab 340s. Recently, Silver Airways has based its remaining Saabs at San Juan in Puerto Rico and used them on short-haul intra-Caribbean flights.
With the Saabs in the process of being retired, Silver Airways has been pivoting towards ATR - Avions de Transport Régional turboprops of which it now operates 17, including four ATR72-600s, eight ATR42-600s, and five ATR72-500(F)s used for Amazon operations.
