Hovertravel flies into Portsmouth Harbour

Hovertravel’s Island Flyer visited Portsmouth Harbour for the first time this morning. Hovertravel’s Solent and Island Flyers are normally to be found crossing the Solent between Southsea and Ryde, but today one of the 12000 craft flew into the harbour for an inaugural visit and trial.

“We wanted to see how the 12000 craft would operate in Portsmouth and capture some iconic images of Hovertravel against this famous waterfront, so we organised a trial and chose a day when we would be seen by the thousands of people visiting Gunwharf Quays for Black Friday,” explains Neil Chapman, managing director of Hovertravel.

Earlier this morning, Island Flyer left Southsea and passed through the entrance to the harbour. After performing several manoeuvres and observing how the craft operates at the low speeds suitable for harbour traffic, Island Flyer returned to Ryde via Southsea.

Neil continued: “Our pilots, crew and engineers all agreed that this was a highly successful first visit to Portsmouth Harbour and the craft exceeded our expectations for this trial. Hovertravel is always interested in exploring new opportunities across the Solent and we aspire to further develop our offering in 2018.”