Passengers aboard a routine Air Canada Express flight from Timmins to Toronto last week got an aviation history lesson as a bonus. They were the last paying customers to fly on a Jazz Dash-8-300, also known as the Classic Dash-8. Chorus Aviation, the parent company of Jazz, announced last year that it was retiring the type. The unidentified captain of the flight, who flew Dash-8s for 33 years, offered an homage to an historically significant airplane.
“You’re flying on a De Havilland Dash 8-300. This is one of the original Dash 8s, the people that fix them and fly them regularly refer to them as a Classic Dash 8. This airplane’s also a machine that Canadians should be proud of. It was made right here in Canada in Downsview, Ont., by the same people that designed and built the legendary airplanes like the Beaver and the Otter. The Dash 8 Classic is well-known for being a very reliable and rugged airplane, it’s able to fly in weather and land at airports that other planes cannot do,” he is quoted as saying by Timmins Today.