I love these planes. I thought I'd share a few tidbits about them...

1. AS numbers their 732's with the series 730-749 tailnumbers.

2. Aircraft 741 is the only one without rear airstairs. To facilitate pax use, a set of air stairs will be driven up to the aircraft.

3. 741 doesn't have airstairs because many years ago, a ramp agent in SCC (Deadhorse/Prudhoe Bay) attempted to break them free of the frozen ground with a forklift and managed to break them in the process. They were never replaced.

4. Some of these planes have a skidplate on the front nose gear and blowers below the engine intakes. The blowers provide downward air to minimize the chances of the engines sucking up gravel and debris when using less than good runways.

5. It takes about an hour to reconfigure one of these planes from cargo to passenger load. The seats are all kept on pallets and they are rolled onto the plane and the pallet is secured to the floor. They use the same securing mechanisms that the cargo containers (aka igloos) use. It's a really cool set up.

6. In 2006 AS plans to start phasing out the 200 series combi's and begin replacing them with 400 series combi's.

7. When flying out to bush communities these aircraft sometimes carry empty water jugs which are then filled at the remote station and used to provide ballast on the return.

8. The use of these planes is the only way that AS can afford to service many of the communities that they do. It wouldn't be economically feasible to fly just cargo or just pax to some of the destinations.

9. These planes carry LOTS of US Mail.

10. The "igloo" containers that carry freight on these aircraft have shuttled animals as large as horses, bears, and even a few walruses.

Here's a great picture of the old workhorse:
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/179564/M/