Video: around (half) the world in an ATR turboprop

The delivery flight of a new ATR turboprop aircraft might not be big news…

But this one in particular, was quite interesting. Not least because the ferry crew had the great idea of making a video of the whole journey…

The ATR-72-600 range is roughly 1,000 miles (perhaps more when empty like in this case) or about 1/10 of the distance between Toulouse and Papeete, so the delivery flight of the latest of this type (registration F-ORVU) from the factory to Air Tahiti’s base, in in French Polynesia, required quite a few stops, including several overnights, all along the way.

Once upon a time, airlines like KLM had multi-stage long distance routes to the Asia-Pacific region and this ferry flight came to resemble one of those.

Curious to see what a turboprop trip between Toulouse and Papeete involves as it with progresses onto Cyprus, Dubai, Chennai, Kuala Lumpur, Indonesia, Cairns, Fiji and, finally, Papeete? check out this video that condenses the trip in some 5 minutes.

As an added curiosity, despite flying half way around the globe, this journey starts and ends…on French soil!