The logos of each airline are on a plane.
Air Choice One is being acquired by Palm Beach, Fla.-based Southern Airways Express. SkyWest requested to end 29 Essential Air Service cities on March 10, less than a month after this announcement. The DOT hasn't approved the deal yet, but the airline believes it will not have any regulatory difficulties as the carriers don't overlap on any routes or cities.
The Southern said in a press release that the move will strengthen the Essential Air Service offerings to the marketplace.
Air Choice One will continue to operate under its airline code, 3E., even though the brand will be retired soon.
Air Choice One has a plane in Fort Dodge, a city they no longer fly to.
Passengers will be able to take advantage of Southern's baggage and ticketing deals with Alaska, American and United Airlines around mid- summer. Air Choice One does not have codeshare agreements. The current Chief Executive Officer of Air Choice One will join the Southern Airways Express team as the Executive Vice President.
Stan Little, Chairman and CEO of Southern, said in the statement that Air Choice One has an incredibly positive reputation.
Southern Airway Express has acquired five airlines in nine years.
Executive Express Aviation was acquired by Southern Airways Express a year after it was founded. The airline gained an FAA charter certificate after this acquisition. The company acquired Sun Air Express, which gave the carrier many of its currently operating EAS cities in the Northeast. Sun Air's Cessna 208s are still with the airline, despite the fact that the company gained nine PA-31 Navajos with this merger.
Southern Airways Express currently has cities in the northeast United States.
The company acquired Mokulele Airlines, which is still operating as a separate brand in the islands, and is now a parent company of Southern Airways Express. The merger gave the Southern a total of at least 15 Cessnas that it now uses in Hawaii.
There is a plane in Honolulu.
The fourth merger happened in March 2020. Makani Kai Air merged its operations with the Mokulele bases in Hawaii, and painted their aircraft into the Mokulele livery. The airline gained six Cessnas from this deal, as well as a few King Air 300s and a single PA-31. The latter types have been retired.
Southern Airways Express will have 12 more Cessnas and two Beech-1900s. The total number of aircraft operating under Southern Airways Express is up to nearly 50. There are three King Air 200s and two Saab340s in the total fleet. The B1900 is not part of the airline's long-range plan, even though it may stay for a few weeks.
A Southern Airways Express plane.
The number of destinations served by the carrier will increase to 41 cities and 222 peak day departures. The airline will be adding three new destinations, two of which are from Air Choice One.
The airline's destinations will be from the northeast to the southwest. The airline has hubs in Dallas, Denver, Honolulu, Kahului, Los Angeles, Memphis, Pittsburgh, and Washington D.C.
The map of Southern Airways Express does not include Air Choice One cities.
Despite the large number of destinations it operates and the complexity of its network, the airline has consistently been ranked as one of the most reliable and on-time airlines in the country.
The company told AirlineGeeks that it is highly likely that Southern will bid on a majority of the communities that SkyWest will end service in.
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