Air Seychelles

Air Seychelles is one of those airlines you hardly get to see in Europe anymore – and that is exactly what makes it exciting. The national airline of Seychelles operates one of the smallest fleets among flag carriers: two modern Airbus A320neos for routes within the region and five Twin Otters shuttling between the islands. Behind it lies a history with Boeing 707s, 767s and Airbus A330s that once flew all the way to Europe. Here you will learn how to place and recognize Air Seychelles and where to photograph it best.

Air Seychelles at a glance

Air Seychelles is the national airline of Seychelles, an island nation in the western Indian Ocean. Its base and only hub is Seychelles International Airport (IATA SEZ) on the main island of Mahé, about eleven kilometers southeast of the capital, Victoria. The airport has a single runway, designated 13/31, just under three kilometers long – long enough for widebodies, which Air Seychelles itself no longer operates today.

The airline emerged in the late 1970s from several small companies that had previously offered air taxi and island flights, including Air Mahé and Inter-Island Airways. Sources give slightly different years for the founding; what is certain is that the airline has operated under the name Air Seychelles since the late 1970s. From 1983, international connections to Europe were added, first to London and Frankfurt – initially with leased aircraft.

Today Air Seychelles is once again fully state-owned. The network is split into two levels: domestic flights between the islands and regional routes to destinations around the Indian Ocean.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code HM: appears in the flight number, on tickets and on departure boards.
• ICAO code SEY: appears in the air traffic control flight plan and usually on flight trackers as well.
• Callsign SEYCHELLES: how the crew identifies itself on the radio.

The IATA code HM has no obvious connection to the name – that is common with IATA codes. The ICAO code SEY, on the other hand, is easy to remember. For identifying an aircraft at the spot, the registration is the most important thing anyway: aircraft from Seychelles carry the prefix S7-. How country prefixes work in general is explained in the guide Understanding aircraft registrations.

The fleet: A320neo and Twin Otter

The Air Seychelles fleet is manageable and clearly divided. According to the latest available figures, it looks like this:

Type	Number	Seats	Use	Spotter tip
Airbus A320neo	2	168 (12 business, 156 economy)	Regional international routes	Large engines, Sharklets at the wingtips
Viking Air DHC-6-400 Twin Otter	5	19	Island service and charters to small islands	High wing, fixed landing gear, two turboprops

With only seven aircraft, the situation can change quickly, for example through an additional leased aircraft in peak season or an outage. Treat the numbers as a snapshot and check current fleet lists before a trip.

Airbus A320neo

The Airbus A320neo is the backbone of the international network. Air Seychelles took delivery of its first aircraft in August 2019. With 168 seats in two classes, it flies routes to Africa, the Middle East and Asia that are quite long for a narrowbody.

For spotters, the neo is easy to tell apart from older A320s: the engines have a much larger diameter, and the upswept Sharklets sit at the wingtips. If you are unsure about a photo, the comparison A320neo or ceo? helps. The manufacturer is Airbus.

Twin Otter

The Twin Otter is the workhorse of the island service. Air Seychelles flies the DHC-6-400 version, which Viking Air in Canada relaunched; the rights to the type go back to De Havilland Canada. With 19 seats, a high-mounted wing and fixed landing gear, it is made for short runways on small islands.

The Twin Otters shuttle mainly between Mahé and Praslin, the country’s second-largest island. They also fly charters to private and resort islands such as Bird Island, Denis Island or D’Arros. Island flights are handled at the domestic terminal, which sits a short distance north of the international terminal at Mahé Airport. At peak times a flight between the islands departs there every 10 to 15 minutes.

From long-haul to regional airline

If you browse older spotter photos of Air Seychelles, you will find aircraft that no longer fit the airline today. The history can be roughly divided into three phases.

The Paris route was economically important for the airline: according to reports, it brought in around 30 percent of passenger revenue. Even so, the decision was made to give up the expensive long-haul service and to reduce aircraft and staff. For 2022 Air Seychelles reported a profit – a sign that the smaller setup works.

The Etihad years left their mark: the frequent flyer program was linked to that of Etihad Airways at the time, and the connection to Abu Dhabi stayed in the network. You can read more about the Gulf airlines’ model and their shareholdings in the article on Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad.

Network and partners

The route network keeps changing, so here is just the outline: according to recent overviews, Air Seychelles flies within the country to Praslin and, by charter, to small islands. Internationally, destinations such as Johannesburg, Mauritius, Mumbai, Colombo, Abu Dhabi, Tel Aviv and Almaty are in the network. Some routes are seasonal or were suspended for a time; Madagascar (Antananarivo) and Singapore, for example, are no longer served.

Among partners, the airline relies on codeshares rather than a big alliance. Named partners include Emirates, Air India, SriLankan Airlines, South African Airways and Turkish Airlines. Regionally, Air Seychelles is part of the Vanilla Alliance, which also includes Air Mauritius and Air Austral.

How to recognize Air Seychelles

In October 2011 the first Boeing 767-300ER received a new color scheme. Before that, the paint was red, white and green and showed two white terns, the birds of the islands. The new design picks up the colors of the national flag with blue, green, red and white on the tail.

At the spot, besides the paint, the aircraft type helps most: on international routes it is almost always an A320neo, on island routes a Twin Otter. A widebody in Air Seychelles colors, on the other hand, belongs to the time before 2018 – if you find such a photo, it is an archive shot.

Spotting Air Seychelles

In Europe, Air Seychelles has practically vanished since the end of the Paris flights. If you want to get the airline in front of your lens, you essentially have two options: you travel to Seychelles yourself, or you catch the A320neo at one of its international destinations, such as Mauritius or Mumbai.

At the home airport on Mahé you have the best chance of seeing the whole fleet. Besides Air Seychelles, international airlines such as Emirates, Qatar Airways, Ethiopian Airlines and Kenya Airways land there, and at times seasonally also European leisure airlines such as Condor, Edelweiss and Discover Airlines. That makes the small airport quite interesting for vacationers with a camera. For tips on combining spotting and vacation, see the guide Plane spotting on vacation.

You can gauge how rare such a sighting is with the article How rare is my sighting?. You can find other small island airlines with Twin Otters, by the way, at Cayman Airways or Winair; in the Maldives, Maldivian also flies island routes.

Common mix-ups

• Reading a name into HM – the IATA code is a pure identifier; the tracker shows SEY.
• Confusing Air Seychelles with Air Mauritius or Air Austral – the registration prefix S7- makes it clear.
• Logging an A320neo as an A320ceo – look for the large engines; according to the latest figures, Air Seychelles does not operate older A320s.
• Considering widebodies current – Boeing 767s and Airbus A330s flew for the airline only until 2018.
• Assigning every aircraft at the domestic terminal to Air Seychelles – check the paint and registration before you log the sighting.
• Equating an HM flight number with the operating aircraft – on codeshares a partner airline often does the flying.

Conclusion

Air Seychelles is a small airline with a great past. Where Boeing 767s and Airbus A330s once flew to Europe, two A320neos now work the regional network and five Twin Otters fly between the islands. For spotters in Europe, that makes the airline a true rarity – if you want to collect it, the best plan is a side trip to Mahé, where you have a chance to see the complete fleet.