NATIONS AIR EXPRESS: United States (1987-2000). NAE is established in Miami in 1987 as Miami Air Charter (2), but does not begin operations. CEO Mark McDonald’s company is renamed in 1994 and a base is established at Atlanta. Three Boeing 737-247s, painted in a patriot motif, are leasing from Viscount Air Services. The remainder of the year is spent in preparing a marketing strategy featuring one-way fares with no advance-booking requirements and otherwise getting set to launch services the following March to Gulfport, Mississippi, four cities in Florida, and from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and Boston.
Ticketless scheduled service is inaugurated on March 26, 1995, between Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Boston. The frequencies are offered five times daily on weekdays and four times daily on weekends. In response to the company’s $59 Philadelphia-Pittsburgh fare, USAir quickly counters with a $53 tariff and matches the upstart on four of its own 16 daily frequencies from Pittsburgh to Boston.
In early April, Nations Air introduces its “Multi-Flyer” program; passengers are able to purchase in advance up to 10 legs between any city and employ them as desired. A Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, stop is added during the spring. After failing to meet FAA guidelines on crew training, the company suspends operations on July 15. The next day, it hires contract carriers to fly its routes.
On August 14, USAir Group informs the SEC that the DOJ is examining charges of predatory pricing in certain cities made against it by Nations Air and Valujet Airlines. The charges will be dismissed.
Enplanements total 82,000 and with costs far exceeding operating income there are large losses: $8.67 million (operating) and an equal $8.67 million (net).
In the wake of the May 11, 1996, Valujet Airlines disaster in Florida, NAE elects to suspend its scheduled services during the third week of the month and to concentrate on charter work.
Financial results are reported through June and show revenues of $5.86 million. With expenses of $7.71 million, the loss picture actually improves; an operating loss of $1.84 million is posted, along with a net loss of $1.87 million.
During the fall, a wet-lease agreement is signed with Pan American World Airways (2) under which NAE operates its B-727-231 on replacement flights in Pan Am livery and under the name Clipper Goodwill.
Passenger boardings for the year skyrocket 50.7% to 205,000.
On February 6, 1997, two New Jersey Air National Guard F-16s from the 177th Fighter Wing based at Atlantic City are flying in a practice area some 70 miles out in the Atlantic Ocean south of New York (JFK). One of the fighters attempts to swoop in unobserved to investigate a company B-737-247 en route to New York from San Juan. This approach to within 1,000 feet below and behind sets off the jetliner’s computerized anticollision alarms and the emergency evasion action taken by the captain to avoid the fighter planes throws three passengers to the floor of the Boeing. No one is hurt aboard the civilian aircraft and the fighter pilot breaks off, rejoins his wingman, and returns to base.
During the next four days, F-16s elsewhere will also make unauthorized interceptions of aircraft from American Airlines, Northwest Airlines, and Flagship Airlines. The intercepts will bring a series of investigations by the USAF, FAA, and NTSB.
When Pan Am takes over Carnival Air Lines and gains access to its fleet, the B-727-231 is returned.
Service continues without incident for the remainder of the year. Customer bookings fall 32.3% to 109,000.
On May 26, 1998, a contract is signed with the wholesale travel company Casino Airlink to provide scheduled roundtrip jet service for its casino vacation packages to Gulfport, Mississippi. The agreement takes effect on June 10, the day after Reno Air stops flying to the Gulf Coast. Nations Air now dedicates 2 B-737-200s to offer a total of 14 weekly departures: three each from Atlanta and Orlando, two from Fort Lauderdale, and six from Tampa/St. Petersburg. This gambling arrangement is insufficient to permit continued economic viability and the carrier is forced into Chapter XI bankruptcy protection in October.
Passenger boardings during the 12 months plunge another 72.5% to 42,000. Cargo traffic is down 78.8% to 10,000 FTKs.
The first quarter of 1999 is taken up with devising a reorganization plan to be presented to the bankruptcy court. The document is duly filed
On April 19 and declares that the company will be rescued by a group of investors, led by David Fink and his Guilford Transportation Industries, which had rescued Pan American World Airways (2) the previous year.
Ten days later, Pan American announces plans to acquire Nations Air and use its aircraft to undertake its own forthcoming scheduled services. The arrangement is never consummated. Nations Air Express stops flying on September 1. Customer bookings for the three quarters plunge 86% to 21,000. The company’s certificate authority is now suspended by the DOT.
At the beginning of 2000, President McDonald’s workforce stands at 140 and his fleet has been reduced to just a single B-737-247. The dot’s Office of Aviation Analysis warns Nations Air on May 19 that the company’s authority will be permanently withdrawn if it does not return to operation by September. When it does not, the AOC is revoked on September 11.
NATIONWIDE AIR CHARTER (PTY.), LTD.: Hangar No. 10, Lanseria Airport, Lanseria 1748, South Africa; Phone 27 (11) 7013330; Fax 27 (11) 701-3243; Http://www. nationawideair. co. za; Code CE; Year Founded 1996. Late in 1996, Managing Director Vernon Bricknell’s Care Air (Pty.), Ltd. is renamed. The second largest BAC operator in the world, NAC’s fleet includes 3 British Aerospace (BAC) 1-11-537GFs, 4 Beech Super King Air 200Cs, and 1 each BAC 1-11-531FS, 1-11-518FG, 1-11-509EW, and 1-11-409AYF.
A code-sharing agreement is signed with Sabena Belgian World Airlines, S. A. on March 28, 1997, and the carrier paints its planes in a modified version of its new partner’s livery. The pact allows the airline’s passengers access to the Belgian major’s frequent flyer program and the marketing expertise of its Swissair, A. G. partner.
In September, a B-727-231A is purchased from Trans World Airlines (TWA) via Fortis Aviation.
Flights continue in 1998. During the fourth quarter, a BAC 1-11-500 is painted as a logo-jet, with a depiction of “The Right Whale.” Christened Cetacea, the aircraft emphasizes the airline’s service to the community of George, off the coast of which right whales breed.
Nationwide joins with Sun Air (Pty.), Ltd. and Comair (Pty.), Ltd. during January 1999 in lodging a complaint with the South African Competition Board (SACB). The three allege that South African Airways (Pty.), Ltd. has so reduced prices and increased capacity on a number of domestic routes as to be engaged in predatory pricing violations. Some SAA fares on the routes between Johannesburg and Durban are less expensive than those for motor coaches. The board indicates that it will undertake an investigation over the next few months. When made aware of the Competition Board complaint, officials from SAA indicate that they will contest the claims.
A former Deutsche Lufthansa, A. G. B-737-230A is acquired, also in January.
South African Airways (Pty.), Ltd. (SAA) and its affiliates continue their fare war with Comair (Pty.), Ltd., backed by British Airways, Ltd. (2), Nationwide Air, supported by Sabena Belgian World Airlines, S. A., and Sun Air (Pty.), Ltd. By mid-summer, the independents have still not heard from the SACB.
On August 1, SAAirlink (Pty.), Ltd. CEO Rodger Foster, who is also serving as chairman of the Airlines’ Association of South Africa, warns that the market is hopelessly overtraded and suggests that one or more of the smaller players will soon fail. Loss-making Sun Air (Pty.), Ltd. is purchased by SAA on August 13 and shut down 72 hours later. In announcing the closure, SAA CEO Coleman Andrews indicates that it should not take the independents more than two weeks to absorb Sun Air’s 10% market share. He also notes that its removal from the playing field should help the survivors to become more viable and to compete more robustly with each other.
A total of 700 workers are employed at the beginning of 2000. The company continues to operate 3 Boeing 727s, 1 each Dash-95, Dash-231A, and Dash-116F, and 1 B-737-230A. Atotal of five BAC 1-11s will be withdrawn this year. A second B-737-230A is delivered during July and is placed into service on the Cape Town-Johannesburg trunk route.
Wearing the red, green and white livery of the Sultanate of Oman, the B-727-231A is wet-leased to Oman Air between July and September to operate daily services from Muscat to Dubai, Jeddah, Pershawar, Karachi, and Madras. Occasional flights are also made to Bombay. The 6-month engagement involves supplying not only the aircraft with its flight deck crew, but also a full complement of 15 cabin crew and the establishment of an engineering support base. A total of 28 Nationwide personnel are based at Muscat to support the contract.
Also during the summer, Chairman Bricknell, via his new Web site, apologizes to the traveling public for the necessity to add fuel surcharges to ticket prices. On the plus side, the Nationwide Exclusive on-line reservations system is simultaneously introduced. The new B-737-230A is also employed to operate a special flight for Daimler Chrysler and several charters for Bafana Bafana, a trade mission to Mozambique.
The first scheduled flights to Livingstone, Zamibia, are completed during the long weekend of September 22-25. A number of additional flights to that point are operated over the next several months as the airline builds up to the introduction of four-times-a-week roundtrips on April 1.
With the introduction of a new winter schedule on October 2, the company unveils its Business Class, Economy Price promotion designed to allow passengers to judge for themselves which carrier offers the “best value-for-money seat” on South African domestic service. Flights between Johannesburg and Cape Town are now offered five times a day.
On November 6, the company makes a formal complaint to government regulators concerning alleged predatory pricing policies on domestic routes by South African Airways (Pty.), Ltd. and SA Express Airlines (Pty.), S. A. They are alleged to be contravening the SA Competitions Act by failing to raise their customer tariffs, even though rising fuel costs have increased their costs.
Having been forewarned that Sabena Belgian World Airlines, S. A. will withdraw service to Johannesburg at the end of March, Nationwide is now forced to find a new code-sharing partner. In mid-November, a strategic marketing agreement is signed with Virgin Atlantic Airways, Ltd. Virgin, which operates daily service between London (LHR) and Johannesburg and twice-weekly roundtrips to Cape Town, places its code on Nationwide flights between Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban. Nationwide begins to repaint its aircraft in modified Virgin colors and participates in Virgin’s frequent flyer program.
Nationwide is allowed to plead its case against SAA before the South African Competition Tribunal on December 13. Noting that it lost R 2.5 million in October, the airline indicates that, without relief in the form of equal ticket pricing, it will soon go bankrupt. It asks that both SAA and SA Express be required to increase their fares.
Sabena Belgian World Airlines, S. A. notes on December 15 that it will actually halt service to Johannesburg on January 29, three months earlier than previously reported. The route closure will also end the company’s code-sharing arrangement with Nationwide. As if the Sabena news isn’t bad enough, the Competition Tribunal rules against Nationwide on December 22.
NATIONWIDE AIR TRANSPORT SERVICE: United States (1945-1950). NATS is organized at Miami Springs, Florida, in 1945 as a nonscheduled aircraft specializing in short - and medium-haul airborne funerals. Once a casket is loaded behind a partition at the front of one of the company’s war-surplus Douglas C-47s and the mourners are seated in the back, the aircraft takes off for its destination. En route, a memorial service is held aloft. On the ground at the appointed destination, additional services may occur.
A C-47 with 3 crew and 30 passengers is involved in an accident at Carmel, California, on January 5, 1947 (4 dead).
This ultimate in niche operations continues until 1950 when the company is purchased by and merged into Resort Airlines. During these years, there is one fatal tragedy.
World History
