Real passenger airlines with An-72?

An-72 can be a nice buy in the game because of its range, but has there ever been a real passenger service with this plane? I couldn't google anything but cargo and military service with either An-72 or An-74, only that some variants were offered as convertible cargo/pax and one VIP version, but even the picture in the game looks like a freighter and I couldn't find that anyone used those convertible versions as passenger airliners...

If there was never a passenger service with this plane, should it really be offered in AE?

Well, the Cl-44 never had passenger service. I don't see many people complaining about that.

this doesn't make the plane useless, it just makes it appeal more to someone interested in making a nice airline than in making a lolprofitable one.

If you're struggling to profit with the an-72, i have to laugh. It was the first plane I got to profit in the Federated States of Micronesia. [No longer works due to a demand drop.]

If you're struggling to profit with the an-72, i have to laugh. It was the first plane I got to profit in the Federated States of Micronesia. [No longer works due to a demand drop.]

Hake can also make profit of them. But, the Q400 is better.

Hake can also make profit of them. But, the Q400 is better.

Yeah, An-72 can easily make more than 50K daily profit... I had no problem making money with them in Russia, and there's not much competition in connecting small Siberian towns 2000 mi apart or for flying to tiny STOL airports in the mountains or on islands around Europe from Moscow, since it needs only like 1300 ft runway finding routes to Switzerland, Norway or Greece is easy...

If you take An72 on short term leasing with high monthly cost and operate it on less profitable routes, basically, you'll be broke in no time.

If you buy it for hard cash and connect small distant airports to major hubs as @konj1 suggests An72 rocks  

Oh, one more thing. Make sure to operate 10+ at the same time to cover base maintenance cost

Once again, the An-72 is almost just as good as an ATR 72. I don't see how people have problems with them.