| |||||||
Founded | 25 September 1970 | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Commenced operations | 16 November 1970 | ||||||
Ceased operations | 31 October 1981 | ||||||
Destinations | See below | ||||||
Headquarters | Boston |
Air New England (ANE) was a US regional airline in New England during the 1970s and early 1980s. It was headquartered at Logan International Airport in the East Boston area of Boston, Massachusetts. [1] ANE was noneconomic for most of its existence. From 1975 through its last year, 1981, ANE depended heavily on government subsidies. Depending on the year, these accounted for 17 to 25% of operating revenues, despite which the airline was generally unprofitable. ANE collapsed in the early years of US airline deregulation.
Air New England, Inc., was incorporated as a Massachusetts company on September 25, 1970, originally located in Barnstable, MA with directors Joseph Whitney (president), Nelson Lee and George Parmenter. [2] Parmenter was head of Cape & Island Airline, a dba of Cape & Islands Flight Service. Whitney was a founder and former president and Nelson a former EVP of Executive Airlines, [3] and at the start the airline was staffed with mostly former Executive staff. [4] Whitney had left Executive after a disagreement with its main shareholder. [5] ANE was billed as a “renaming” of Cape & Islands to better reflect the New England-wide service area of the airline [6] but the two remained separate corporations until both were dissolved after ANE stopped flying. [7] News articles at the time of ANE's founding/first flight (which occurred November 16, 1970) speak of Beech 99s and DHC-6 Twin Otters and show a picture of an ANE Beech 99, [4] but the US Civil Registry of January 1971 shows two Beech 18s (and a Twin Otter). [8] A September 1971 schedule shows the fleet included Beech 99s, DC-3s, Beech 18s and Twin Otters. [9] Until 1974, Air New England was categorized as an air-taxi, or commuter, that part of the US airline business that was unregulated because it flew small aircraft, which at the time were defined as carrying 30 or fewer passengers with a maximum payload of 7,500lbs. [10] In that year, the US Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), a now defunct Federal agency that, at the time, tightly regulated the US airline business, certificated Air New England, allowing it to fly larger aircraft but also making it subject to CAB oversight. As discussed below, such certification of an air taxi or commuter operator was unusual.
ANE was privately held. Its two major owners were Fairleigh Dickinson, Jr. and Robert Hudson Kanzler. [11] Kanzler was a son of Ernest C. Kanzler, an early Ford Motor Company executive (who persuaded Henry Ford to move beyond the Model T, but was forced out as a result) [12] and a friend of Edsel Ford. Ernest and Edsel married sisters so Henry Ford II was Robert Kanzler's first cousin. [13] His mother, Josephine Hudson Clay, was a niece of the childless founder of Hudson's, the one-time Detroit department store that was a forerunner to Target, explaining Robert Kanzler's middle name.
Over the first four years of operation, Air New England grew to become the dominant commuter airline in New England, overcoming and ultimately driving out of business the former dominant player, Executive Airlines. ANE's original network linked New York LaGuardia and Boston to three destinations in Massachusetts (New Bedford, Hyannis and Nantucket) and three in Maine (Portland, Augusta and Waterville). [14] ANE's traffic grew from 90,000 passengers in 1971 to 320,000 in 1974. [15] It triumphed by first concentrating on the Islands and Cape business (Martha's Vinyard, Nantucket, Hyannis), undercutting Executive (which, although larger, had a far worse cost structure), [16] largely driving them out of this area by 1972. [17] Then, fed by profits from the Islands and Cape, ANE moved its attention to the north, again undercutting Executive. [18] Executive declared bankruptcy in December 1971 [19] and went out of business entirely in December 1973, selling some assets to ANE. [20] ANE's summer 1974 network linked LaGuardia and Boston to four destinations in each of Maine and Massachusetts, as well as one in New Hampshire and two in Vermont. See Fleet section below for how its fleet changed during this time.
Air New England received certification in 1974 as a result of the CAB's New England Service Investigation, the focus of which was the New England routes that caused long-term financial distress to Northeast Airlines. Northeast was a trunk carrier that had merged into Delta in 1972 after many years of losses. Northeast's New England route network was more similar to that of a local service carrier, the carriers the CAB had originally certificated to fly smaller routes. Northeast had been obligated to serve many small New England cities. Like most local service carriers, Northeast required subsidies to operate its network. After 1955, Northeast was the only trunk carrier that needed subsidies to survive, subsidies the CAB paid until 1968. Also included in the investigation were a couple of New England routes that Allegheny Airlines had inherited in its 1972 merger with Mohawk Airlines. [21]
The recommendation of the CAB's administrative law judge and its staff was to give these unprofitable New England routes to unregulated air taxi or commuter operators. The New England states and communities saw things differently and board members themselves believed New England deserved the benefits of certificated service with larger aircraft. The Board's solution was to certificate ANE, giving them the routes Northeast and Mohawk had been unable to fly profitably, relieving Delta and Allegheny of the obligation. [21] With this background, ANE's record of financial distress from 1975 onward (see nearby table) is not a surprise. The CAB essentially made ANE the designated certificated operator of routes that were proven losers, at least for a carrier flying “big” airplanes under CAB supervision. (For ANE, "big" aircraft were Fairchild-Hiller FH-227s, a slightly larger US built version of the Fokker F-27 turboprop. These were, in fact, the same aircraft Northeast had flown.)
Air New England was the first domestic carrier in the contiguous US to be certificated for multiple routes at one time since the local service carriers had been certificated in the late 1940s/early 1950s, so its certification was a big deal. [22] There had been US carriers certificated for international routes only (like Trans Caribbean Airways in 1957) and domestic carriers originally certificated to fly a single route only (Aspen Airways in 1967, TAG Airlines in 1969 and Wright Air Lines in 1972) but nothing like Air New England. The CAB categorized its carriers and deemed Air New England a “regional carrier”, slotting it in under the local service carriers and above the single route certificated carriers like Aspen and Wright. Air New England was in a category of its own until Air Midwest was certificated as another regional carrier in 1976. [23]
Notwithstanding the poor hand it was dealt by the CAB, ANE made things harder on itself. For instance, at New York LaGuardia Airport, it used the Marine Air Terminal, far from the main terminal, making connections to other carriers difficult – it provided a courtesy bus to move people between terminals, but noted it might take 45 minutes to arrive. [24] Considering ANE was designed to be a regional feeder airline, and that in the regulated era interlining among CAB carriers was mandatory, [25] the difficulty of making connections with ANE at LaGuardia was a big mistake. ANE was also asleep at the switch when deregulation was signed into law. It was a near-certainty this would make ANE's life harder, yet it failed to immediately apply to the CAB for increased subsidy. Established CAB practice was that subsidy changes dated from the day new rates were requested – no backdating. ANE didn't apply until months later, needlessly foregoing additional monies. It took the CAB to court to try to get that lost money, and lost. [26] More generally, ANE seems to have had no serious plan for how to deal with deregulation. It did expand outside of New England, but such routes in the 1 October 1981 timetable, just before it died, have a random nature to them – Boston-to-Albany-to Rochester-to Cleveland-to Baltimore. There seems little rhyme or reason to these choices. [27]
USD 000 | 1975 [28] | 1976 [28] | 1977 [29] | 1978 [29] | 1979 [30] | 1980 [31] | 1981(1) [31] |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Op revenue | 14,578 | 15,364 | 17,908 | 20,801 | 26,312 | 28,436 | 20,325 |
Of which subsidy | 2,963 | 3,590 | 3,818 | 3,770 | 4,524 | 7,117 | 4,914 |
Op profit (loss) | (891) | (662) | 203 | (1,289) | (2,055) | (290) | (3,812) |
Net profit (loss) | (1,527) | (1,287) | 56 | (2,044) | (2,779) | 273 | (2,128) |
Op margin | -6.1% | -4.3% | 1.1% | -6.2% | -7.8% | -1.0% | -18.8% |
Net margin | -10.5% | -8.4% | 0.3% | -9.8% | -10.6% | 1.0% | -10.5% |
Subsidy/op revenue | 20.3% | 23.4% | 21.3% | 18.1% | 17.2% | 25.0% | 24.2% |
Air New England shut down on October 31, 1981, with 400 employees. The company cited "intolerable financial losses" caused by competition, lack of federal subsidies, cumulative expenses, and a decrease in revenue caused by the contemporaneous strike by the air-traffic controllers' union, PATCO. [32] ANE had been carrying close to 600,000 passengers a year in 1980. In 1981, it depended on $6.1 million in federal subsidies to cover operating costs. During its 12-year existence, the airline suffered only one serious incident/crash [cited below] and had one of the highest safety/reliability ratings of all American based airlines over that 12-year period." [33] [34]
In September 1981, Wright Air Lines signed a tentative $10 million deal to purchase ANE. [35] In the end, Wright walked away from ANE, with its owners doing the same, shutting Air New England on October 31, 1981. As an industry source noted, “Air New England didn't have anything to sell.” [36]
An on-demand charter operator named Air New England based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Portland, Maine, has been operating since 2010. [37]
At year-end 1970, Air New England's operating fleet comprised three DHC-6 Twin Otters, one Beech 99, two Beech 18s and one Aero Commander 500B. In June 1974, the operating fleet comprised five DC-3s, eight Twin Otters, four Beech 99s and two Aero Commanders. The Aero Commanders were not used in scheduled service. [38]
World Airline Fleets 1979 lists Air New England as having eight FH-227s and ten DHC-6 Twin Otters. [39]
On 17 June 1979, an Air New England de Havilland Twin Otter aircraft crashed while approaching Barnstable Municipal Airport in Hyannis, Massachusetts. One person, the pilot, was killed. [41] [42]
The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) was an agency of the federal government of the United States, formed in 1940 from a split of the Civil Aeronautics Authority and abolished in 1985, that regulated aviation services and, until the establishment of the National Transportation Safety Board in 1967, conducted air accident investigations. The agency was headquartered in Washington, D.C.
Saturn Airways was a US supplemental air carrier, certificated as such by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), the now-defunct Federal agency that, at the time, tightly regulated almost all US air transport. Saturn operated from 1948 until 1976. Originally a Florida company, Saturn moved to Oakland, California in 1967 where its headquarters were located on the grounds of Oakland International Airport.
Cape Cod Gateway Airport, also known as Boardman/Polando Field and formerly known as Barnstable Municipal Airport, is a public airport located on Cape Cod, one mile (1.6 km) north of the central business district of Hyannis, in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. This airport is publicly owned by the Town of Barnstable. It is Cape Cod's major airport as well as an air hub for the Cape and the Islands. The airport is served by scheduled commercial flights as well as charters and general aviation. Barnstable Municipal Airport served as a hub for Nantucket-based commuter airline Island Airlines until its shutdown in 2015.
Rich International Airways was primarily a United States charter and cargo airline founded by aviation pioneer Jean Rich, one of the few women in the U.S. to own and operate an airline. The air carrier was based in Miami, Florida. The airline ceased operations in 1996 and filed for bankruptcy in 1997.
Wiggins Airways is a long-lived American aviation company that pursued many lines of business during its existence, including:
Northeast Airlines was an American trunk carrier, a scheduled airline based in Boston, Massachusetts, originally founded as Boston-Maine Airways that chiefly operated in the northeastern United States, and later to Canada, Florida, the Bahamas, Bermuda and other cities. It was notably small and unprofitable relative to other trunk carriers, being less than half the size, by revenue, than the next biggest trunk in 1971. Northeast was acquired by and merged into Delta Air Lines in August 1972.
Aspen Airways was an airline carrier and regional affiliate of United Express and based in Hangar 5 in Stapleton International Airport in Denver, Colorado. Aspen ceased operations on April 1, 1990, when separate portions of the airline were acquired by Mesa Airlines and Air Wisconsin Services, Inc.
Trans Caribbean Airways (TCA) was an irregular air carrier until 1957, when it was certificated by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) as an international air carrier to fly from New York City to San Juan, Puerto Rico. TCA thereafter operated as a small scheduled airline specializing in flying from New York to the Caribbean, adding a small number of additional routes over time until it was purchased by American Airlines in 1971.
On the surface, Wright Air Lines was no different than many other many other small turboprop airlines that collapsed in the early years of the deregulated US airline industry. What set Wright apart was:
Challenger Airlines was a local service carrier, a United States scheduled airline certificated to fly smaller routes by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), the now defunct US Federal agency that, at the time, tightly regulated almost all air transport. Challenger merged with two other local service carriers, Monarch Air Lines and Arizona Airways, in 1950 to form the first Frontier Airlines.
Local service carriers, or local service airlines, originally known as feeder carriers or feeder airlines, were a category of US domestic airline created/regulated by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), the now-defunct federal agency that tightly regulated the US airline industry 1938–1978. Initially 23 such airlines were certificated from 1943 to 1949 to serve smaller US domestic markets unserved/poorly served by existing domestic carriers, the trunk carriers, which flew the main, or trunk, routes. However, not all of these started operation and some that did later had their certificates withdrawn. One other carrier was certificated in 1950 as a replacement. "Feeder airline" alludes to another purpose, that such airlines would feed passengers to trunk carriers. It was expected that a significant number of passenger itineraries would involve a connection between a local service carrier and a trunk carrier.
Intrastate airlines in the United States were air carriers operating solely within a single US state and taking other steps to minimize participation in interstate commerce, thus enabling them to escape tight federal economic airline regulation prior to US airline deregulation in 1979. These intrastate carriers therefore amounted to a small unregulated, or less regulated, sector within what was otherwise then a tightly regulated industry. As detailed below, flying within the geographic boundaries of a single state was a necessary but not sufficient condition to qualify as an intrastate carrier.
Trunk carriers or trunk airlines or trunklines or trunks, were the US scheduled airlines certificated in the period 1939–1941 by the Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) or its immediate successor, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) after the passage of the 1938 Civil Aeronautics Act on the basis of grandfathering: those carriers that were able to show they performed scheduled service prior to the passage of the Act. During the regulated period (1938–1978) these carriers were an especially protected class, with the CAB regulating the industry in many respects in the interests of these companies, a form of regulatory capture. The importance of these carriers is reflected is shown that in 2024, the three largest airlines in the United States, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines were among the carriers certificated through this grandfathering in 1939.
Florida Airways was a brief-lived United States local service carrier, also known as a feeder airline. On March 28, 1946, the US Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), the now defunct federal agency that, at that time, tightly regulated almost all US commercial air transportation, certificated Thomas E. Gordon, dba Orlando Airlines to provide air service from Orlando, Florida to points in central and north Florida for a three-year period. Gordon beat out competition from trunk carrier National Airlines and from another local service carrier, Southern Airways, for the routes. Gordon owned a fixed-base operator at Orlando Cannon Mills Airport.
Mid-West Airlines was a Des Moines, Iowa-based local service carrier, a scheduled airline certificated by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), the now-defunct Federal agency that at the time tightly regulated almost all US air transportation, to fly smaller routes in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and South Dakota. It was briefly owned by a Purdue University affiliate before being liquidated after the CAB refused to extend the airline's initial certification. It was one of three local service carriers that failed to have initial certification extended by the CAB, the other two being Florida Airways and Wiggins Airways.
Challenger Airlines was a Utah intrastate airline, a scheduled United States airline that operated from Salt Lake City in 1946. It had the same parent company the local service carrier Challenger Airlines that operated from 1947 to 1950, when it merged with two other local service carriers to form the first Frontier Airlines.
Wilmington-Catalina Airline, Ltd. (WCA) was a US scheduled airline founded in 1931 by the Wrigley family of chewing gum fame to provide air transportation with amphibious aircraft on the 30-mile flight from Wilmington, California to Santa Catalina Island. In 1941, the name of the company changed to Catalina Air Transport (CAT) in anticipation of changing to land-based aircraft, but it ceased operation in June 1942 as a result of World War II. After the war, United Air Lines provided service to the island under contract to CAT until 1954. In 1955 CAT formally lost its airline certificate and the company dissolved in 1956.
Johnson Flying Service (JFS) was an American certificated supplemental air carrier, a type of airline defined and regulated after World War II by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), a now defunct federal agency which tightly regulated almost all commercial air transportation in the United States during the period 1938–1978. From 1964, supplemental air carriers were charter airlines; until 1964, they were scheduled/charter hybrids.
Resort Airlines was an unusual United States scheduled international airline certificated in 1949 by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), the now-defunct Federal agency that, at the time, tightly regulated almost all commercial air transport in the United States. Resort's scheduled authority was restricted to offering all-expenses paid escorted tours to nearby foreign destinations, known as sky cruises. Resort could offer conventional charter service but no other scheduled service. The market for sky cruises was limited and quite unprofitable, so the vast majority of Resort's business was charters, and for several years, only charters. At the time, the US did not have pure charter carriers, but rather supplemental air carriers, which at the time had a limited ability to offer scheduled service. Since Resort was functionally a pure charter carrier, it had in some ways the most restrictive certificate in the US airline industry. The airline ceased operations in 1960 at which time it tried selling its certificate to Trans Caribbean Airways. But in 1961 the CAB rejected the deal and revoked the moribund carrier's certificate.
Mackey International (MI) was a US airline, initially flying under commuter regulations until it was certificated in 1978 as an international scheduled airline by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), the now-defunct Federal agency that, until 1979, tightly regulated almost all commercial US air transportation. MI's founder was Joseph C. Mackey, who earlier founded Mackey Airlines, which flew similar routes until sold to Eastern Air Lines in 1967. Through 1978, MI flew between Florida, the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos and Haiti under under a number of names, including Mackey International Air Taxi, Mackey International Air Commuter and Mackey International Airlines. However, the legal name remained Mackey International. MI grew during the early 1970s but never achieved profitability. In 1977, its offices were destroyed by a terrorist bomb.