() (formerly '''Express Airlines I''') is an
American Regional Airline based in
Memphis, Tennessee ,
USA , operating all of its flights under the name
Northwest Airlink for
Northwest Airlines . Its main base is
Memphis International Airport , with hubs at
Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport ,
Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport and
Indianapolis International Airport .
1
The airline was established in February
1985 as
Express Airlines I with the intent of offering regional airline passenger feed to a code sharing, major airline’s hub. Express I began its first code sharing agreement with
Republic Airlines in May 1985. Republic was looking to expand into Memphis, but could not reach out to the smaller cities. Express I was able to accomplish this by beginning service on
June 1 ,
1985 to 3 cities using
BAe Jetstream 31 aircraft. Within six months, Republic was operating in ten markets with nine Jetstream 31s and two
Saab 340 aircraft.
On
December 15 ,
1985 , a second contract opened operations at a Republic Airline’s home base at Minneapolis-St. Paul. By its first anniversary, Republic Express was operating 20 Jetstream 31s and seven Saab 340s in 32 markets. In Spring 1986,
Northwest Airlines announced its intent to acquire Republic Airlines. Following regulatory approval and ratification by the shareholders of the respective companies, Republic was absorbed into Northwest effective
October 1 ,
1986 .
Over the next decade, Express I provided airline services to 56 cities in the Southeast and upper Mid-West. In
1997 , Northwest Airlines elected to make changes in the structure of Express I, which, until then, had been privately held. Effective from
April 1 ,
1997 , Express I became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Northwest Airlines. In order to consolidate the many Airlink systems operated at that time, Express I transferred flying at Minneapolis-St. Paul, allowing it to concentrate on the Memphis Hub.
In August 1997, Express I moved its corporate headquarters to Memphis, allowing all the various departments to function from its main base of operations. On
May 7 ,
1999 , Express I announced a major transition into the jet age as its parent company announced that Express would be the launch operator of the
Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ) at Northwest. This award was for a minimum of 42 CRJs designated to operate as Northwest Jet Airlink. Delivery of the CRJs began in April
2000 and the first Northwest CRJ lifted into the sky on
June 1 ,
2001 bound for Greenville – Spartanburg, SC.
Express I further expanded by the development of three additional Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul (MRO) facilities related to CRJ operations. The first, located in Knoxville, Tennessee, is a permanent base. It is capable of handling up to four aircraft under cover. The Knoxville facility will serve as the primary CRJ Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul facility. Other CRJ maintenance sites are located at South Bend and Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Express Airlines I changed its name to Pinnacle Airlines, Inc. on
May 8 ,
2002 . Pinnacle's callsign is "Flagship", due to an Arkansas charter company that has already claimed the callsign "Pinnacle". The flagship radio callsign was used from almost the beginning of the airline in 1985. For a couple of weeks the carrier used jetstream and the tail number. The use of "flagship" came because several of the original people, in particular the VP of flight operations and director of training, came from the then defunct Dolphin Airlines in Florida, which had used the callsign prior to their demise. In November,
2003 , Pinnacle Airlines became a publicly traded company, using the symbol PNCL on the NASDAQ. Pinnacle has been contracted to fly 124 CRJ's on behalf of Northwest Airlines. On
July 18 ,
2004 , the 100th CRJ was christened the 'Spirit of Memphis Belle,' in honor of a WWII bomber that was paid for with funds raised by the African-American community in Memphis.
On
January 18 ,
2007 , Pinnacle announced the acquisition of
Colgan Air , which will continue to operate independently.
2 The acquisition of Colgan Air is a $20 million strategic move to get access to Colgan’s partners,
Continental Airlines ,
United Airlines and
US Airways Flight International , 23-29 January 2007.
The airline has 3,436 employees (at March
2007 ).
Northwest agreed with Pinnacle on a new Air Service Agreement on
December 21 ,
2006 . The details of this ASA include a contract to have Pinnacle fly 124 CRJ's until
2017 . Northwest has also put a clause in the contract allowing the CRJ-200 aircraft to be converted to 76 seat aircraft.
Part of the new ASA included a clause that if Pinnacle management and ALPA do not agree on a new pilot contract by March 31 2007, then Northwest can remove up to 17 CRJs from Pinnacle's fleet. Since this deadline passed with no new pilot contract, Northwest is exercising their right to remove 17 CRJs from Pinnacle, starting in September at a rate of two CRJs per month. These 17 CRJs will be removed from Pinnacle and handed over to
Mesaba Airlines . Northwest has announced that Pinnacle will keep the 17 CRJs due to Mesaba Airlines not being able to staff the aircraft.
Northwest has also allowed Pinnacle to seek flying from other carriers and this will begin in January 2008 when Pinnacle's new subsidiary
Colgan Air starts flying out of Newark's Liberty International Airport under the "CONTINENTAL CONNECTION" banner. Colgan already flies as Continental Connection out of Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport using 34-passenger
Saab 340 turboprops and flies to cities in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Under this new agreement, Colgan will operate 74-passenger Bombardier DeHavilland-Canada DHC-8-Q400 turboprops from Newark. Continental will announce destinations at a later date.
April 30 ,
2007 - Pinnacle Airlines Corp. signed a 10 year contract with
Delta Air Lines to be a
Delta Connection carrier. The 16
Bombardier CRJ 900 's will begin delivery in
November 2007 and the deliveries will be complete in
July 2008 . The first batch of delivered aircraft will be based in Atlanta with service beginning in
December 2007 .
Pinnacle flies out of three hubs, Detroit MI, Memphis TN, and Minneapolis-St. Paul MN. Pinnacle currently serves over 110 cities in 39 states and Canadian Provinces. It operates well over 800 flights a day.
Pinnacle Airlines Facts (Northwest Airlink)
See
Northwest Airlink Destinations .
The Pinnacle Airlines fleet includes the following aircraft (at March
2007 ) :
- Flight 3701 was a Bombardier CRJ-200 with a crew of two operating a ferry flight (with no passengers) from Little Rock, AR to Minneapolis, MN. It crashed on October 14 , 2004 due to unprofessional actions taken by the crew flying the aircraft. The NTSB has since finished its investigation of the accident.
