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'Pinnacle Airlines' () (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]

Contents

History

Future

Destinations

Fleet

Incidents and accidents

External links

References

History

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^[3].
The airline has 3,436 employees (at March 2007).

Future

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.

Destinations

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.^[4]
See Northwest Airlink destinations.

Fleet

The Pinnacle Airlines fleet includes the following aircraft (at March 2007) :

Type	Total	Passengers (First/Economy)	Routes	Notes
Bombardier CRJ-200LR	53	50 (50)	Domestic/International short haul	Operated for: Northwest Airlink
Bombardier CRJ-440	71	50 (50)	Domestic/International short haul	All Pinnacle CRJs are now 50 seaters
Canadair CRJ-900	(16 orders)	76 (12/64)	To be determined	Operated for: Delta Connection

Incidents and accidents

★ 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.

★ Flight 4712 was a Bombardier CRJ-200 with a crew of 3 and 46 passengers that overran the runway on April 12, 2007 in Traverse City, Michigan.

External links

★ Pinnacle Airlines

★ Pinnacle Airlines at Yahoo Finance

References

1. Directory: World Airlines
2.
3. Flight International, 23-29 January 2007
4. Pinnacle Airlines Facts (Northwest Airlink)