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Old Jul 26, 2007 | 10:11 am
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WHBM
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There are still a range of floatplane operations around the world, but indeed there has not been a scheduled service in Europe for a while.

The Greek operator in question brought their plane to London last year and showed it to the press, along with describing a most unlikely set of routes for it from London which we have heard nothing more about since.

Subject to confirmation the previous last scheduled flying boat service in Europe was likely Aquila Airways from Southampton to Lisbon and Madeira (which latter had no airport at the time), also to Elba in Italy. These were big Shorts 4-engined aircraft which took all day on their substantial journeys. Aquila had an accident in 1958 which brought the operation to an end.

The last real flying boat to come to London was about 15 years ago, another Shorts, it's the one you can see nowadays in Kermit Weeks' aviation museum in Florida near Orlando (has various items and books about flying boats, which of course are more interesting than anything you can see at Disney World ). It's the plane on the left hand side of their website's home page.

Last edited by WHBM; Jul 26, 2007 at 10:19 am
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