Key Lime Air
Second miserable day to fly in the midwest, with additional multiple-hour delays affecting this morning's flights, especially on the regional carrier I was on, Key Lime Air dba Denver Air Connection.
Still, despite two-plus hour delays and pouring rain much of the time, the aviation geek goal of flying the Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner 23, was accomplished! It's a rare plane in commercial passenger service, especially in the USA, with Key Lime Air operating only two of them in a passenger configuration and something like 600 of all variants built between 1968 and 2001. Quite a few more than two are active in cargo-only configurations, particularly on Ameriflight in the USA, but unless you're air crew you're not going to be on one of those...
It's a short flight, 180 miles from Denver International Airport to Alliance Municipal Airport in Nebraska, but after hearing about it in The Points Guy last year, it was too fun an #avgeek thing not to do! TPG's Ethan Klapper covered the details well, but he at least got a sunny day to fly and not a rainy and miserable one. The route he mentions as a longer option, McCook Ben Nelson Regional Airport (MCK), sadly did not have a schedule that worked out for me, even though an extra 38 miles in the Metroliner would have been all the more time to enjoy it.
While the Swearingen Metroline seats up to 19, that would be an extremely cramped setup. Configued for Essential Air Service (EAS) operation with just 9 seats, all the seats except 1C are quite spacious, and you have an open view into the cockpit the whole flight. Watching the pilot and co-pilot hand-fly the aircraft on the return was quite cool, given that almost everything today is done with some level of automation. Add in tarmac boarding and it's a fun experience, even in the rain.
For those who enjoy flying to little tiny airports and new places on uncommon airplanes, t'was absolutely a worthwhile trip!