Last month's chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by Pinnacle Airlines Corp., the Memphis-based parent of regionals Pinnacle Airlines, Colgan Air and Mesaba Aviation, brought into sharp focus the challenges faced by the regional airline industry in the US. The capacity-purchase model that has become standard is threatened by, among other things, the consolidation push of US mainline carriers. And after several years of controlling more than half of the US domestic air passenger market, US regionals' market share dipped below 50% in 2011. "If you were to read the headlines, you would think that the worst has happened, that we've disappeared, that we've gone the way of the dinosaurs," US Regional Airline Assn. (RAA) president Roger Cohen commented during a recent conversation. "The key message here is that the business challenges the industry is going through right now are as game changing as any as we've gone through probably since the [regional airline] industry started 40 years ago. But at the same time...regional airlines have shown that they are adaptable and resourceful and flexible and innovative. We've shown that we've been able to conquer the most significant challenges."
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