If
there is one aircraft type that has a long and rich connection with the city of
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, then it must be the Fokker F28 Fellowship. For
decades the Saskatoon John G. Diefenbaker International Airport was the home of
the largest stored fleet of Fokker F28s in the world.
Back
in the mid 1980s Saskatoon’s NorCanAir received a permit from the United States
for a scheduled flight service between Saskatchewan and the United States. This
permit stated that the flight could only be carried out with an aircraft up to
a certain weight. NorCanAir only operated propellor aircraft (like the
Convairliners and Fairchild F27s) at the time, but the management wisely
decided that the new route to Minneapolis required a jet airliner. The only jet
that fell within the weight limits of the permit was the Fokker F28-1000 (and
-3000) Fellowship.
Fokker
Aircraft was contacted and together the search started to look for available
aircraft on the market. Fokker knew that a couple of F28s that were operated by
the private Italian airliner “Itavia” had been stored for some time. Although
Itavia operated successfully for over 30 years, it didn’t survive the aftermath
of the infamous Itavia Flight 870 crash.
The
two Fokker F28s were the C-GTEO (cn
11991, ex I-TIDI) and the C-GTUU (cn
11006, ex I-TIDB). They were ferried to Saskatoon, where both aircraft were
prepared for service. The C-GTUU’s interior
was quite dated with 1970s flowers and what not, so it quickly was affectionately
nicknamed the “Ugly, Ugly”, as a reference to its registration.
When
both F28s entered service, NorCanAir realized that these gems could not only
operate it’s international flights to the USA, but also, it’s charter flights
to gravel bush strips like Point North and small mining towns like Uranium City
more efficiently than the aging propellor driven Convairs and Fairchild F27s.
The decision was made to standardize the fleet to F28’s and that in the future
the only thing driven by propellors were boats.
A
third F28 was found in Australia, where the Department of Aviation had put
their VH-ATE (cn 11082) up for sale.
But before it was delivered to Canada, NorCanAir had been purchased by Time Air
out of Lethbridge. VH-ATE became the
C-GTAH, with the letters TA
referring to Time Air.
The
Fokker F28 Fellowship also became the first jet powered aircraft in the Time
Air Fleet. The versatility of the jet was well appreciated, and the airline
went full in on the Fokker F28, buying many F28 from USAir, who replaced them
with brand new Fokker 100s.
In
1993 Time Air changed its name to Canadi<n Regional, after it signed a
contract with Canadi<n International Airlines to operate as a feeder. The
contract stated that the airline could only operate aircraft with a max seating
capacity of 69, in order not to compete with the main airline. This means that
the 65 seat Fokker F28-1000 was a perfect fit. The F28 fuselage was even wide
enough to fit the standard Canadi<n International business class seats so
that Time Air (dba Canadi<n Regional) could also offer the profitable
business class product.
Canadi<n
Regional operated the F28 on its international flights as well as on the
charter flights to unpaved airstrips in the North. This is the reason why
sometimes the ground crews at Chicago O’Hare could see the old F28 arrive
covered in mud!
No
other aircraft type could do what the F28 did and more F28-1000 were added to
the growing fleet. Soon Canadi<n Regional was the third largest airline in
Canada (after Air Canada and Canadi<n International Airlines) and the
largest operator of the Fokker F28-1000 in the world.
CRA
(Canadi<n Regional) intended to operate the type well into the 2010s, but
after the attack on world trade centre 9/11 Canadi<n International ended up
in a financial crisis and was forced to merge with Air Canada by the Canadian
government.
Although
Air Canada did apply a hybrid livery to several F28s, the decision was made to
retire the aircraft type from the fleet. The whole fleet was flown to it’s main
F28 maintenance base Saskatoon, where once the F28 success story began and put
up for sale.
Selling
the F28s proved to be difficult, due to the age of the aircraft, the high fuel
consumption and noise that didn’t meet new noise regulations in many parts of
the world. In the early days of Fokker F28 storage at Saskatoon, a handful of
Fellowships did find a buyer and were sold to keep flying for a few more years,
but for much of the fleet, the future started to look bleak.
By
2010 most of the “storage maintenance” had stopped and some aircraft received
damage from weather, birds or cramped parking. The owners of the F28s were now
more focused on selling parts of the F28, enabling F28s in other parts of the
world to keep flying.
In
meantime, aircraft enthusiasts from Alberta recognised the important role the
F28 played in Canada’s aviation history and decided it was time to start a
campaign to safe at least one for a museum. The owner of the fleet appreciated
the initiative and offered one complete F28 (C-FTAV. cn11106) to the Time Air
Historical Society for a friendly price. C-FTAV
was once painted in Time Air’s jubilee colour scheme. Two other ones (cn 11050
& 11099) were also moved to Alberta.
In
meantime, the rest of the F28s in Saskatoon started to deteriorate to the point
that the airport authorities wanted them gone. They were in the way of the
airport’s snow removal equipment, the paint jobs were faded to the point that
they became eyesores, and they attracted a large quantity of birds, like
pigeons, who made nests in them.
In
September of 2018 the owners decided to please the airport authorities by
scrapping the 6 F28s C-FCRW (cn
11029), the C-FCRP (cn 11037), the C-FCRC (cn 11044), the C-FOCR (cn 11063), the C-FTAS (cn 11098) and the good old C-GTEO (cn 11991). The remaining 12
were pushed tightly on the grass beside the hangar of the owner.
The
airport authorities were still not completely satisfied with this solution,
because it didn’t solve the problems of the birds and the image of the airport.
In the last week of August 2026, action was taken and the remaining F28s were
swiftly cleaned up and trucked away as scrap metal. These were the C-FCRB (cn11107, last F28-1000 built), C-GNCR (cn 11034 ex F-BUTI), C-GKCR (cn11101), C-FZCR (cn 11054), C-FCRI
(cn 11043), C-FQCR (cn 11036), C-GLCR (cn 11105), C-FCRM (11035), C-FPCR
(11096), C-FFCR (cn 11095), C-FXTA (cn 11064) and finally the C-GTAH (cn 11082) was the last F28 to
have its wings clipped.
These
F28s were such a permanent feature on the airport for so long, that the new
reality of them all gone will take some time to get used to. With the last
remains of scrap metal leaving the airport gate ends the last chapter of the
rich history of F28s in Saskatoon. A history that started many decades ago with
a small Saskatoon based airline with huge ambitions.
