By Ashe O New York, Aug 25 : The majority of airlines in the US are struggling in an inflationary post-pandemic economic environment, despite the fact that they saw an increase in 2021, which is well into the coronavirus time.Numerous delays and cancellations of flights occurred in the first week of this year, and continued throughout the summer, which heightened the anger of passengers as well as airline employees.
One of the major airlines, ExpressJet Airlines, is in danger of going under due to an array of economic difficulties.
ExpressJet Airlines, formerly known as Delta Connection and United Express was shut down in the last week.
According to the website of the company it applied for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday in Delaware.The company stated that a variety of problems with marketing and business caused the company’s closing.
In the past, economic problems have been a problem for many major carriers around the world and ExpressJet could be the first of many airlines to stop operations, according to media reports claimed.
While ExpressJet Airlines isn’t the most well-known airline but it was home to more than 500 aircraft on its fleet at the time of its highest point.
It was the largest operator of the Embraer ERJ145 aircraft, which is a 50-seat regional jet with turbofan power and a wide range.The Embraer is built in Brazil and is well-known with all low-cost airlines in the world.
Although it operated this famous aircraft however, the pandemic triggered new challenges for the carrier and its customers.When United Airlines took over the company in 2018 it made the decision to stop its use of ExpressJet aircraft because of budget cuts related to the pandemic.
This slowed the company massively, as it was unable to lease its aircraft out or utilized to increase its profits as reported by the media.
Although ExpressJet Airlines was apparently down and out during the outbreak however, the company commenced an exercise to rebrand in its last effort to prevent the airline from going under.
The rebranding was dubbed Aha! Airlines which turned the regional airline into a jet-flying experience with a budget.
The newly revived airline had been operating out of the Reno-Tahoe Airport for the last six months.
Jets could travel to 11 cities in the western United States, but this reduction in size didn’t protect the company from the inevitable decline.The rising costs resulting from fuel price hikes and inflation have hampered ExpressJet’s overall revenues and left the company with without a choice but to declare bankruptcy.
Just a month ago Aha! the head of the company Tim Sieber expressed his excitement for the company’s growth.Sieber stated in an announcement to the press that Aha! is one of the “fastest-growing” regional airlines in the western United States.
After announcing with aplomb the growth of the airline It was a shock that Aha! would shut down operations so early.
The ExpressJet Airlines CEO, who was also the owner of Aha The CEO of Aha, who owned Aha, issued the following statement, acknowledging the problem of inflation and pandemics as the primary reason of the latest “termination of operations”.
It was recently reported that July 2022 was a fairly profitable year for the financials of Aha And ExpressJet Airlines, which is in line with the positive press release issued by Sieber.In the month of July, the airline had a near-perfect record for flights, with a 95.6 per percent on-time arrival rate, as well as no cancellations.Although this is a crucial aspect to maintain an airline but the company was not producing self-sustaining revenues to pay for the rising costs of fuel.
Even with this month being a hugely successful one this year, in which the majority of Americans were flying to destinations for the holidays with Covid 19’s situation becoming less stressful but the airline could not ease the financial strain of the market conditions, which ultimately led to the decision of the complete shut down of the business of regional jets.
ash/kvd
