an airbus a330 aircraft operated by airtanker services on behalf of the ministry of defence (united kingdom) carried out those flights, called the south atlantic air bridge, although a limited number of commercial passenger tickets were available. those flights now travel via cape verde. aw ship management arranged for civilians to board raf flights to and from raf ascension island and raf brize nortion. previously aw ship management had a package deal where passengers could travel in one direction on the raf flights and in the other on the rms "st helena", which travelled between ascension, saint helena, and cape town, south africa until the opening of st helena airport to passenger flights.