The Saab 340 is a Swedish regional aircraft, which first flew on 25 January 1983. Designed to seat between 30 and 36 passengers, it proved very popular around the world, becoming the best selling regional aircraft of its time.
Powered by a pair of General Electric CT7-9B turboprop engines, it has a range of 1,350km or 840 miles in the 340B configuration. With comfortable three abreast seating, passengers were well set with plenty of space. Crossair of Switzerland started services first in June 1984.
Saab 340 Video
Following on from the last video about the Mitsubishi MC-20, this time we head to Sweden for a look at the Saab 340. Well, not to the Nordic country exactly, as this video was produced by Air Panama. It runs for a shade under two minutes and shows you all around the new plane.
While I can’t understand the video, it’s fun to hear them mentioning all the airlines that operate the plane. I guess this was to reassure the travelling public that this was operated by the big carriers!
A Saab Cockpit
There are two pilots who fly the plane (perhaps not too surprisingly) and I came across this image and had to share it. This was taken in Sweden in 2009.
Overall Thoughts
The Saab 340 was produced all the way through to June 1999, with a total of 459 examples being built. The youngest aircraft is 25 years old at the time of writing, so they aren’t very commonly found these days.
There are many flying with REX in Australia (Regional Express Airlines) as they are perfect for that airline’s route structure. That is perhaps the easiest place to get on board one these days.
Have you flown on the Saab 340 before? What is it like? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by Bidgee via Wikimedia Commons.
Cockpit via Ostersund Photography via Wikimedia Commons.
Yes! I actually was lucky enough to fly on one of the Loganair Saab 340 farewell flights around Glasgow back in January (review to follow soon!). I was speaking to the pilots and they absolutely loved flying them around Scotland. Apparently they could take more of a beating from the weather than the ATRs that have replaced them, making them less prone to delays and cancellations.
That makes sense, the ATRs are always being cancelled due to high winds, which is not great in this part of the world, that’s for sure!
I flew them quite a lot, especially with Northwest.
Very nice! 🙂
Quite a few regional airlines affiliated with US majors operated them into hub airports. These include Northwest Airlink (Mesaba and Express Airlines I), American Eagle, Delta Connection (Comair), etc. This allowed frequent service from smaller cities to the hubs.
I remember that there was a gate agent who began to recognize me. Once she was working at the ticket counter and held the 340 for me, albeit about 2 minutes.
Eventually, there were too many competitors as well as perceived preference for small jets. The Dornier 328, Fokker 50, Saab 340, Jetstream 41 all went under. The Saab 2000, a stretched version came too late and saw few orders. General Motors bought a Saab 2000.
In Linkoping, Sweden, where the Saab 340 was built, there was a downtown hotel with an aviation theme. I wonder if it’s still there?
Yes, it seems to have been really popular in the US. A shame they decided to exit the airline business. There is no aircraft with this seat capacity these days, which is why Rex in Australia has not replaced them. I think the ATRs are too much for them. I’ll have to look up that hotel and see what I can find. Thanks for the tip!
I believe the hotel is no longer there or, if there, no longer has an aviation theme. It was located on a main street in downtown very close to the cathedral and near a large bookstore. Google maps shows no such hotel
Ahh, that’s a shame!
Yes, flew many times on these in and out of MSP when they were in Northwest’s fleet — usually to LSE, ALO, SBN. This includes a few times when I was the only pax, and the FA had me move to the back row with her “for weight and balance”. Crazy!
Yes, those small planes are a bit touchy when it comes to weight and balance. Nice you’ve got to fly on it several times! Thanks for the comment.
I flew the 340 many times between BOS and PHL on Business Express, as well as on Northwest (Mesaba) out of MEM and DTW. They were loud, very few passenger “luxuries” other than a restroom and a coffee maker, but they were definitely reliable. If I was ever given the choice of the 340 or the Bombardier CRJ100/200, Saab would have one 100% of the time
It’s funny how people really don’t like the CRJs. Cool to hear what it was like on board – those older planes were definitely a lot noisier than what we’re used to today. Thanks for the comment!