The British Aerospace ATP was set to be a game-changing regional aircraft, carrying on from the popular, but smaller, Jetstream series, and the BAe 748.
It was also developed to rival types from other manufacturers like the Fokker 50, ATR 42/72 and aircraft developed by de Havilland Canada.
ATP stood for Advanced TurboProp and the aircraft first flew in August 1986. Yet despite early interest, only 65 examples were built, with the final one rolling off the production line in 1996.
The BAe prototype at Woodford near Manchester. Photo (c) Martyn Cartledge
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Who Flew the ATP?
In its early days, the BAe ATP was flown by airlines like British Airways, British Midland, British World Airlines, Loganair and Manx.
Overseas carriers like Air Europa Express, Biman Bangladesh, Merpati, SATA Air Acores, Turkish Airlines and United Express flew the type in passenger service.
Next Jet ATP
In its latter days, Swedish regional carrier NextJet became the last operator of the type in passenger service.
In a bid to fly on an ATP before it was too late, I travelled across to Sweden in 2011 and flew on four sectors with NextJet. You can read about that trip here.
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Who Flies the ATP Today?
Today the BAe ATP is definitely a rare type.
Most of the 65 airframes have now been scrapped, with a number also withdrawn from use or in long-term storage.
Coventry Airport in the UK’s West Midlands has a bunch which have slowly been diminishing over the past decade.
The remaining active ATPs are in use as freighters, having been converted from passenger variants. West Atlantic are now the largest operator of ATPs, with 14 examples registered to their Swedish division (although not all are active).
These are used mostly on night-time operations delivering packages between cargo hubs and regional airports in the UK and Scandinavia.
You can commonly see them at airports like East Midlands, Guernsey, Belfast International and Isle of Man in the UK; Malmo in Sweden; Billund in Denmark; Cologne Bonn in Germany; Brussels in Belgium.
While they fly at night, this means they are usually parked up during the day, so you can often see them quite easily.
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Another airline which has two BAe ATPs in its fleet is Deraya Air Taxi, based at Jakarta’s Halim Airport in Indonesia. These also fly freight around the region, and not passengers.
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Did you ever fly on a BAe ATP? Did you like the type, or find it unpleasant? Leave a comment below.
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22 comments
I saw an ATP at YSBK in Sydney Bankstown, Australia in 2017. I assumed that the a/c was scheduled to be converted there into a cargo configuration. She would have been a first time ATP on the register in Oz. But I think she must have been ferried back to Halim in Jakarta, or even all the way back to Europe.
Wow, a long way from home!
I heard one/some went to Kenya a few years ago when I worked at Coventry when West Air were based there, I was told that their ATPs could easily do another 40 years.
Yes I did fly on one from hanover haj. To Manchester man. It was about 3 and half hours fight I remember it being very slow but not a bad flight big windows to see out it is a shame the aircraft did not sell in large numbers..
I flew on the Atp when manx airlines had them. My dad was a training captain for manx and the cockpit was interesting.
Fantastic! Thanks Mark
Hi,
I was lucky (?) enough to have many a flight on various ATPs back when I was with British Midland.
Not the most pleasant experience sitting in one of the last rows on a full flight on finals with a strong crosswind but
still happy days.
Yes I flew on a Loganair (BRAL) ATP a couple of times from Sumburgh to Aberdeen and Glasgow in the mid 2000’s. I found it as comfortable as other turboprops.
I was very fortunate to spend a day at BAe Woodford in April 87, with my wife and two young sons, and see round all the hangars and production sheds, and look around the prototype G-MATP. We also were fortunate in seeing the last production 748s on the line sn 1806 and 1807. Our camera had to be handed in at security, however we were given loads of glossy brochures, which I still have.
Have had two ATP flights, 3rd April 1991 in G-BRLY on a demo flight out of Melbourne, with jump seat, and 4th May 94 on MANX G-LOGD BHD/MAN ., again with cockpit access for landing.
Very enjoyable, great aeroplane, bug brother to the 748.
Have photographed a few over the years thankfully.
Fantastic stories Mervyn. Must’ve been great to be on those jumpseats!
My flights between 1988-2007 with the ATP:
1 ACE – TFN Lanzarote – Tenerife Norte with Canarias Regional
2 OPO – LIS Porto – Lisbon LAR Transregional
3 IBZ – PMI Ibiza – Palma de Mallorca Air Europa Express
4 LHR – LBA London – Leeds Bradford British Midland
5 TFN – ACE Tenerife Norte – Lanzarote Canarias Regional
6 GVA – NCE Geneva – Nice British World AL
7 LBA – LHR Leeds Bradford – London LHR British Midland
Impressive number of flights and different airlines there Christopher!
I started with, the then, British Aerospace in early 1984 working in the ATP design team at Woodford. I think I’m correct in saying I had been on every ATP produced on the line including the fuselages that went to Prestwick for rebranding the Jetstream 61. All my flight experience on the type occurred in 1990 when I flew Manchester, Hannover, Tegel and return with a jump seat experience Tegel, Bremman and return. This was an 8 week period supporting British Airways operations based at Tegel over February / March of that year. Also when the wall physically came down and the border opened to all.
Unfortunately the aircraft earned the nick name of a Czech car manufacturer due to early reliability problems.
One little known proposal, for which I did the schemes for, was a proposal for an AEW variant submitted to the RAAF having scaled down nose and tail radome’s as per the Nimrod AEW. Although this was created under the UK’s highest secrecy level the proposal appeared in an Australian enthusiast magazine within weeks of the proposal being submitted. All in all a good 8 years on type.
Very interesting Ian! Thanks for sharing.
I flew in one last year here in Kenya. It was a nice experience, I like the aircraft. If you want to fly in ATP make a visit to Kenya. There are two passenger aircraft available.
I flew on BA ATPs from Manchester to Jersey, Belfast (twice) and Aberdeen in the 90s. Also as a kid I had a few “bits” that “fell off” the prototype 748 that was lying abandoned at Woodford when I visited the airshows back in the 60s.
Haha, you’d think they’d build them so that bits don’t “fall off”!
My first job out of A&P school was as an aircraft mechanic for United Express in the mid 1990s doing mostly overnight maintenance on ATPs. The job was crap, the planes were a pain, but it was the most fun I ever had. The planes were very safe, which was probably a good thing for us.
Great memories Jay! Thanks for sharing.
1989-90, I was the A/P flying spanner on the ATP sales tour which took us to; North America South America, Canada on the first leg, then Romania, Hungary, Turkey, Czech Republic and Norway on the second leg. We the travelled to Christchurch NZ where we were in service with Mount Cook Airlines for four weeks. We flew via; Italy, Egypt, Kenya,Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Bali, Darwin, Cairns, Sydney then onto Auckland. These were long legs approx 10-12 hrs.
Great experience.
Wow, amazing experience Alan! Bet you had a great time in all those places. Thanks for sharing!
I was a production TP and trainer on the ATP at Woodford in 1988/9. The first off the line were destined for Wings West, an operator based in Orange County, who chose the ATP for its low noise characteristics. That order failed and a regional airline in Portugal bought some. I spent an enjoyable few
weeks line training there following base training at Woodford and Liverpool. BA acquired some for its then Highlands and Islands services, resulting in my base and line training pilots based in Glasgow.
The aircraft was quiet (I was involved in demonstrating it at Farnborough in 1988 and our slot was well chosen, following a Tornado arrival and assaulting spectators’ eardrums – they remarked how quiet the ATP was in contrast) and good to fly, except on the back up fly by wire system which was a handful.