Comair

From Free net encyclopedia

This article is about the US airline. See Comair (South Africa) for the South African operator.

Comair is a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Air Lines based in Erlanger, Kentucky, USA, a city near the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport, which serves Cincinnati, Ohio. Comair is one of the world's largest regional airlines, operating under the name Delta Connection to a large number of destinations in the USA, Canada and the Bahamas.

It also operates some flights from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia. Comair once operated a hub at Orlando International Airport in Orlando, Florida, but Chautauqua Airlines has taken the reins of the dominant RJ airline in Orlando instead, although Delta's marketing solution is continually fluid. Recent Comair base announcements include, once again Orlando, Greensboro, and New York (JFK).

1 History
2 Destinations
3 Fleet
4 External links

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History

The airline was established in March 1977 and started operations in 1978. It was founded by David Mueller and his father Raymond in Cincinnati and began scheduled services with three Piper Navajo aircraft. Under its parent Comair Holdings, it became a public company in July 1981 to support the growth and capital requirements to upgrade their fleet. It became a Delta Connection carrier in 1984. In July 1986 Delta Air Lines acquired 20% of Comair stock, and acquired full ownership on 22 October 1999.

On March 26, 2001, Comair's pilots went on strike. The strike cancelled the airlines flights and grounded its fleet. The strike ended after a settlement was reached three months later.

Comair came to nationwide attention in the United States during Christmas 2004 when it cancelled all of its 1,160 flights for Saturday December 25 and Sunday December 26, stranding 30,000 people, many of them never reaching their destination for the holidays. The reason for this was the computer system that handled flight crew assignments had a hard coded limit of changes for a month. This was reached during December 2004 due to weather in the Cincinnati area.

On September 14, 2005, Comair along with its parent Delta, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

On October 13, 2005, Comair announced that would cut costs by $70 million dollars annually. These savings are to be achieved by aircraft, flight, and employee reductions.

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