Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Only one plane is a bit more difficult. But it depends on how you define airlines - scheduled passenger operations? I know some smaller aircraft owners who give their plane away to netjets or any other private charter broker while they are not using it. Also there are ad-hoc charter airlines that are using their planes only in case of sudden events (irrops at other airlines, ...).
But I don't know of any airline with one plane that is doing commercial scheduled passengers operations including all the stuffs like booking engine, own branding etc.
Ryanair began life in 1985 with a single 15 seat Embraer flying Waterford to London (Luton). Today, it's the global #1 carrier of passengers internationally, 120M approx. I first flew them when they had only 2-3 aircraft. Now they are exclusively 737, and have been since the early days.
Ryanair began life in 1985 with a single 15 seat Embraer flying Waterford to London (Luton). Today, it's the global #1 carrier of passengers internationally, 120M approx. I first flew them when they had only 2-3 aircraft. Now they are exclusively 737, and have been since the early days.
Yeah, they also used BAC 1-11 for a while. I wish I could have flown on those.
Ryanair began life in 1985 with a single 15 seat Embraer flying Waterford to London (Luton). Today, it's the global #1 carrier of passengers internationally, 120M approx. I first flew them when they had only 2-3 aircraft. Now they are exclusively 737, and have been since the early days.
Yeah, I meant a single plane, not a single type. And I also meant commercial service, not charter or one off. Now that I think about it that one plane still needs maintenance and possibly down time but you still could still do business with one. Owner/operator truckers do it all the time with just one truck.
Several years ago a cousin of mine who owned a small flying service, mostly flight training, founded an airline that flew from Rapid City, SD to Billings, MT with a stop in Gillette, WY and back once each day. It was mostly for hauling smaller packages but he'd also carry a passenger or two occasionally. The plane that he used was a Grumman Tiger AA5B, a small single-engine 4-seater.
He had a few other small planes in his training fleet, the "largest" being a Piper Apache, an ancient, tinny, twin-engine 4-seater (which I earned my twin rating in) that flew more like an underpowered 2-seater, but it did have that second engine to meet some FAA regs. I don't know if it or any of his other planes "could" be used for airline duties.
I don't know how long he did it, but it wasn't very long. He was owner, operator and pilot. He was a retired AF pilot, one of the first to fly military jets.
IIRC, Western Airlines also started with a single plane back in the '20s. I'm sure there were others.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
