Boarding ATR72 at Roland-Garros airport, La Réunion. Cargo at the front, self-loading freight (passengers) to rear.
Tropical fair weather clouds
And so back to the UK, my first leg was on an ATR 72 turbo-prop plane, pressurised cabin and flying up to about 4250 m. to Mauritius. Cramped and noisy compared to a jet. Amazing to think that before jet travel to La Réunion it was planes more basic than this which forged the routes.
The first aircraft (single engine propeller) arrived on La Réunion in November 1929 after an heroic flight of 24 stages. Air France started a weekly DC-4 service in 1946 using aircraft converted from wartime service, the DC-4 had four piston engines and an unpressurised cabin with just 44 seats. Route via Tunis, Cairo and Madagascar. Flying time 49 hours over 6 stages. The first commercial jet was a Boeing 707 which was not until 1967, still with a refuelling stop at Djibouti.
It’s difficult to imagine those pioneering flights: champagne is only a partial anaesthetic. The alternative was 25 days sailing from Marseille to La Réunion via the Suez Canal operated by paquebots (packet-boats) of the Messageries Maritimes company.
Even the intercontinental flight I used was tiring enough; first the noisy, cramped ATR-72, then the big A350 took 12 hours, flying mostly over the weather at more than 12,000 m.