Pinnacle airlines

Express Airlines I was formed in February 1985 with the aim of providing passenger air service between small towns and large hub airports of the country ^[3] . The airline entered into its first partnership agreement in May 1985 with Republic Airlines ^[4] , which was the main operator at Memphis International Airport and attracted small regional carriers to operate on local airlines, mainly to release their own Douglas DC-9 jets for their use on routes of greater length and congestion in passenger traffic. In May 1985, Express Airlines I operated Memphis with three cities, operated on Handley Page Jetstream , and over the next five months the company’s route network expanded to ten cities served by nine Handley Page Jetstream and two Saab 340 .

On December 15, 1985, the second code-sharing was signed between airlines for operating activities in another hub - Minneapolis / Saint Paul International Airport. To celebrate its first anniversary, Express Airlines I used 20 Handley Page Jetstream planes and seven Saab 340 planes, serving routes to 32 cities across the country. In the spring of 1986, the main airline Northwest Airlines announced its intention to acquire Republic Airlines , which was realized on October 1, 1986 after passing through regulatory procedures for approving the transaction and ratifying the merger of carriers by the shareholders of both airlines.

During the first ten years, Express Airlines I built its own route network covering 56 cities in the Midwestern United States and the southeastern part of the country. On April 1, 1997, the private airline Express Airlines I was acquired by Northwest Airlines, becoming its wholly owned subsidiary. The takeover of the air carrier entailed structural changes in its route network with the shift of the center of gravity of traffic to the Memphis hub and the transfer of the airline's headquarters there in August 1997.

On May 7, 1999, Express Airlines I announced the mass transfer of the airline fleet to Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ) jets, which had been operated by Northwest Airlines at that time. It was a question of 42 CRJ aircraft, whose delivery to Express Airlines I began in April 2000, the first regular flight was performed on June 1, 2000 along the route Greensville - Spartanberg ( South Carolina ).

The airline has deployed three of its own Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet aircraft maintenance services: Maintenance (maintenance), Repair (overhaul) and Overhaul (overhaul). The first unit is located at a permanent base in Knoxville ( Tennessee ) and can simultaneously serve up to four aircraft in closed hangars. The Knoxville base is planned to be upgraded to the level of all CRJ service procedures (maintenance, repair and overhaul). The remaining CRJ repair and overhaul units are currently located in South Bend and Fort Wayne , Indiana .

On May 8, 2002, the airline changed its name to Pinnacle Airlines . The carrier’s radio call sign has remained as FLAGSHIP since 1985, as PINNACLE has already been assigned to another charter company from Arkansas . In November 2003, Pinnacle Airlines went through the process of corporatization by placing its shares on the NASDAQ exchange and receiving its own code in the PNCL stock listing. By this time, the airline operated in 124 US cities under the Northwest Airlink brand name.

On January 18, 2007, Pinnacle Airlines announced the acquisition of Colgan Air , which, after merging, will maintain its route network unchanged ^[5] . The purchase of Colgan Air cost almost $ 20 million and had as its strategic goal access to Colgan Air partnership agreements with main airlines Continental Airlines , United Airlines and US Airways ^[6] .

As of March 2007, the company employed 3.436 employees ^[2] .

On January 4, 2008, Pinnacle Airlines became an independent airline, buying back its own Class A preferred shares from Northwest Airlines. The acquisition was completed prior to the acquisition of Northwest Airlines by Delta Air Lines . ^[7] .

Currently, the Pinnacle Airlines fleet is in the process of repainting the CRJ-200 aircraft from the Northwest Airlink brand livery to the Delta Connection brand livery, the entire procedure for rebranding the aircraft should take about 16 months.

On December 21, 2006, Northwest Airlines and Pinnacle Airlines signed a new partnership agreement, according to which a fleet of 124 Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet aircraft operates in the NWA regional flights until the summer of 2017. The contract provides for the reconfiguration of the passenger compartment CRJ-200 in the 76-seat layout.

The contract also states that if the management of Pinnacle Airlines and the Association of Airline Pilots are unable to reach a new collective agreement with the pilots by March 31, 2007, Northwest Airlines reserves the right to exclude up to 17 CRJ-200 aircraft from the contract between the airlines. As the indicated period expired and no new agreement was concluded, the NWA exercised its right to withdraw 17 CRJ-200 aircraft from the contract, reducing the number of working fleet by two aircraft per month. All 17 units of the CRJ-200 were eventually withdrawn from the Pinnacle Airlines fleet and transferred in 2008 to the operational management of Mesaba Airlines .

Under the terms of the same agreement, Northwest Airlines' management allowed Pinnacle Airlines to work with other carriers, and in January 2008, a new subsidiary, Colgan Air, began scheduled flights from Newark Liberty International Airport under the Continental Airlines brand of Continental Connection . Colgan Air, operating under the Continental Connection brand, also operates 34-seat Saab 340s from Houston Intercontinental Airport to the cities of Texas , Louisiana, and Arkansas . As part of a partnership agreement with Continental Airlines, Colgan Air will begin regular passenger transportation on a 74-seat Bombardier Q400 , primarily on the route between Newark (Liberty) and Toronto Pearson International Airport ( Canada ). This marketing step is aimed at creating fierce competition for the Canadian regional airline Porter Airlines , opening a regular Newark-Toronto route on the same Bombardier Q400 aircraft.

On April 30, 2007, Pinnacle Airlines signed a ten-year contract for the use of Delta Connection's carrier brand with Delta Air Lines , which ordered 16 Bombardier CRJ-900 aircraft . Deliveries of the CRJ-900 began in November 2007 and were fully completed by May 2009. The first batch of aircraft began operating scheduled flights from Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport . On June 10, 2008, the management of Pinnacle Airlines announced the termination of the contract from July 31, 2008 due to the refusal to make changes to the airline’s route schedule that go beyond the code-share agreement, however, on July 18, 2008, Delta’s management announced an additional agreement between the airlines, according to which Pinnacle Airlines will continue to operate under the terms of the original contract ^[8] .

The Pinnacle Airlines fleet operates from four own hubs at Memphis International Airport , Detroit Metropolitan Wayne Airport, Minneapolis / St. Paul International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport . The company provides passenger transportation in more than 110 cities in 39 states of the USA and Canada, while performing more than eight hundred flights per day ^[9] .

As of December 2009, the Pinnacle Airlines fleet consisted of the following aircraft ^[10] :

October 14, 2004, flight 3701 Little Rock ( Arizona ) - Minneapolis ( Minnesota ), Bombardier CRJ-200 . A plane flying a night ferry between airports and flying without passengers crashed in the Jefferson City ( Missouri ) area. The cause of the disaster was the plane’s exit at supercritical angles of attack, engine shutdowns and the inability to restart them due to damage during stopping. Both pilots died ^[11] .

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