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Harry leaves private-jet days behind, takes WestJet turboprop plane in Canada

Jan. 21, 2020
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2 min read
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex Visit South Africa
Harry leaves private-jet days behind, takes WestJet turboprop plane in Canada
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On Monday evening, Harry, the Duke of Sussex, began his journey to start a new life in Canada with Meghan, Archie and their dogs.

He first boarded British Airways flight BA85 to Vancouver, which departed Heathrow at 6 p.m. — about 30 minutes later than scheduled, according to flight-tracking site FlightRadar24. On board the Boeing 747, a plane aptly nicknamed Queen of the Skies, he is likely to have flown in either First or Club World, where he would have experienced the very best of British hospitality in the sky.

TPG reached out to British Airways about what cabin Harry traveled in but did not receive a response by time of publication.

Related reading: Splitting time: What should Prince Harry and Meghan's frequent flyer strategy be?

According to the Mail, Harry then took a short 16-minute hop on a WestJet flight from Vancouver International Airport (YVR) to Victoria Airport (YYJ) on Vancouver Island. The aircraft was a Canadian-made Dash 8, a widely used turboprop aicraft found on Alaska Airlines regional routes or regional U.K. airline Flybe. With no space for a business- or first-class cabin, this would have been a very different experience from his previous flight on a British Airways 747.

(Photo by Liam Allport/Flickr)
(Photo by Liam Allport/Flickr)

The specific Canadian-registered Dash 8 aircraft — a four-year-old plane registered C-FJWE — flew Harry and up to 77 other passengers on the 39-mile journey, which crossed the Strait of Georgia.

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(Image courtesy of Flightradar24)

Related reading: WestJet opens a new Boeing 737 route from Manchester to Canada

The decision to take the 4,763-mile journey via commercial transport might have been made following the slamming that the couple received in August 2019 for taking a private jet on two back-to-back trips to France and Ibiza. Now, we can say that the royals — they're just like us.

Featured image by Getty Images

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