Jet America Airlines

Jet America Airlines was a United States domestic airline that operated from 1981 to 1987 when it merged with Alaska Airlines after briefly operating as a separate carrier within Alaska Air Group. It was headquartered in Signal Hill, California, near Long Beach.

History

Headed by executives largely from Air California, the Civil Aeronautics Board issued a final order finding Jet America "fit, willing and able" on June 18, 1981 and the airline began operating on November 16, 1981, with a flight from its home base at Long Beach Airport (LGB) to Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD). By July 1984 the airline had expanded service to Dallas/Fort Worth, St. Louis, and Oakland, and had launched its own frequent flyer program. Its fleet consisted of six McDonnell Douglas MD-82 aircraft, with a further four on order; a Boeing 707 was also leased in June 1984 for charter operations, which rapidly incurred significant losses and resulted in the early termination of the lease in January 1985.

Services to Detroit, Las Vegas, and Orange County, California were inaugurated in 1985. During that year, Jet America joined with Disney to advertise a direct route from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) to Long Beach Airport for people to visit Disneyland in its 30th anniversary year. Many of these ads were played during Texas Rangers baseball games or were placed in the team's programs and calendar.

In the summer of 1986, Jet America was operating a small hub at the Las Vegas McCarran International Airport (LAS) with nonstop jet service to Burbank (BUR), Chicago (ORD), Dallas/Ft. Worth (DFW), Long Beach (LGB), Milwaukee (MKE), Ontario (ONT), Orange County (SNA) and St. Louis (STL) as well as direct one stop flights to Detroit (DTW) and Washington, D.C. (DCA).

In the spring of 1987, as part of Alaska Air Group, the airline was operating direct flights between the west coast and the east coast of the U.S. including a round trip multi-stop flight with a routing of Orange County (SNA) - Portland (PDX) - Seattle (SEA) - Minneapolis/St. Paul (MSP) - Washington, D.C. (DCA) as well as a Long Beach (LGB) - Chicago (ORD) - Washington, D.C. (DCA) round trip flight.

Late in 1986, the airline received buyout offers from Delta Air Lines and Alaska Air Group. The main interest of the carriers were Jet America's landing slots at Washington National, Chicago O'Hare, John Wayne Airport and Long Beach airports. Given Jet America's financial losses and its ever-changing route network, there was little franchise value. The airline accepted the Alaska bid and by the end of the year the acquisition had been completed. After initially attempting to operate the two airlines separately but finding its strategy for Jet America unprofitable, Jet America was merged into Alaska Airlines in October 1987. Alaska Air Group cited a $9 million loss for Jet America in the first nine months of 1987 prior to merging Jet America into Alaska Airlines. Alaska sold Jet America's 14 slots at Chicago O'Hare Airport and four slots at Washington National Airport to United Airlines in exchange for cash and certain west coast facilities. Alaska received praise from industry observers for bringing the "ill-fated" Jet America experiment to a quick end.

Destinations in 1987

Jet America served the following destinations as of June 1987.

Fleet

At the time of its acquisition by Alaska Airlines, the Jet America fleet consisted of the following aircraft:

Fleet history

See also

• List of defunct airlines of the United States

References