Comair

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

Comair
IATA OH	ICAO COM	Callsign COMAIR
Founded		1977
Hubs		Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport John F. Kennedy Int'l Airport
Focus cities		Boston Logan Int'l Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Int'l Airport
Frequent flyer program		SkyMiles
Member lounge		Crown Room Club
Alliance		SkyTeam
Fleet size		168
Destinations		110
Parent company		Delta Air Lines, Inc.
Headquarters		Erlanger, Kentucky
Key people		John Selvaggio (President) John Fierro (Senior Vice-President of Flight Operations)
Website: http://www.comair.com/

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 and and in terms of revenue, Comair would be considered a major airline carrier as it has over $1 billion annual revenue earnings, however does not qualify for major status simply because its aircraft seat less then 100 people. Operating under the brand name Delta Connection, Comair operates passenger services to a large number of destinations in the USA, Canada, Mexico and the Bahamas.^[1]. It also operates some flights from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Recently, Comair announced it will close its bases in Greensboro North Carolina, and Orlando, Florida. Comair has also opened a base in New York JFK. In late 2006, Comair had the lowest percentage of on time flights of all major U.S. carriers. This was the result of starting operations from JFK, a notoriously congested airport that severely dropped Comair's ratings in the FAA listings. ^[2]

History

The airline was established in March 1977 and started operations in April 1977. It was founded by Patrick J. Sowers, Robert T. Tranter, David Mueller and his father Raymond in Cincinnati and began scheduled services with two 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. Delta Air Lines acquired full ownership on 22 October 1999^[1] at a cost of over 2 billion dollars.

A Delta Airlines Comair parked at Will Rogers World Airport (with the old Comair logo on tail)

Comair CRJ-700 at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport

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 new contract was agreed to 89 days 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 was a twofold combination of record snow and crew scheduling software flaw. On December 23 and 24, a record snowfall hit the Cincinnati area, forcing the airline to deplete its entire supply of deicing solution. With the area highways closed due to the blizzard, no additional deicing fluid could be delivered to the airport, and Comair was forced to cancel all flights beginning on Friday December 24. After receiving necessary supplies overnight, the airline began the process of startup when the computer system that handled flight crew assignments shut down. It had been designed with a hard coded limit of changes for a month, which were far exceeded due to the poor weather in the prior days. The software, ironically, had been in the process of being phased out at the airline in favor of a new system with more capabilities. Comair's parent company Delta Air Lines, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 14, 2005, forcing Comair into bankruptcy along with it. Comair announced that would cut costs by $70 million annually. These savings are to be achieved by aircraft, flight, and employee reductions. On May 25, 2007, Delta announced that Comair would operate 14 CRJ-900 aircraft for the Delta Connection program. These aircraft will replace 14 CRJ-100 aircraft currently in Comair's fleet.

Destinations

Main article: Comair Destinations

Fleet

Comair CRJ-100ER

Comair's fleet consists of the following aircraft:

Incidents and accidents

• On October 8 1979, Comair Flight 444, operating a Piper PA-31-310, crashed shortly after takeoff from Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport. All eight people aboard were killed.
• On January 9 1997, Comair Flight 3272 operating an Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia aircraft, crashed while on approach into Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. All 29 aboard were killed.
• On March 19 2001, Comair Flight 5054 operating an Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia aircraft, experienced an in air incident while in transit from Nassau International Airport to Orlando International Airport. The flight diverted to West Palm Beach Airport for an emergency landing. All 27 aboard survived.
• On August 27 2006, Comair Flight 5191 operating a Bombardier CRJ-100ER aircraft, crashed while taking off from Lexington's Blue Grass Airport. 49 of the 50 on board, including all 47 passengers, were killed.

External links

• Comair
• Delta Air Lines

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Directory: World Airlines", Flight International, 2007-04-03, p. 67. 
2. ^ Mutzabaugh, Ben. Which flights are always late? Delta partners, NYC airports top the list. USA Today. Retrieved on January 4, 2007.