Carnival Air Lines

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Carnival Air Lines (IATA: KW, ICAO: CAA, and Callsign: Carnival Air) was a charter and low-cost air division of Carnival Cruise Lines started in 1988 after Carnival Cruise Lines purchased Pacific Interstate Airlines.

[edit] History

The airline began operations in 1989, flying charters from San Juan and Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, to several Caribbean destinations as well as Southern Florida on behalf of Carnival Cruise Lines. It was the first airline to offer jet services to Aguadilla's airport. During its lifetime, Carnival was mainly a charter airline. Most of its charter services were performed to ferry passengers between its major cruise ports in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Aguadilla, and San Juan as well as to ferry passengers who had missed their cruise to the next port of call. They were also chartered to fly Southern Florida's professional sports teams to road games.

In the mid-1990s, Carnival began limited scheduled services from San Juan to Miami and Orlando, Florida, and Islip, New York. In 1996, Carnival opened a route from Miami to Lima, Peru's Jorge Chavez International Airport. However, low demand and high competition on its scheduled routes caused the airline to cut down scheduled services the following year.

In September 1997, Pan Am Corp., a holding company formed by the reincarnated Pan Am, bought Carnival Air Lines in an attempt to bolster its fleet and operations into a new airline based on the old Pan Am. Before either airlines could fully merge, the holding company and its two independently operated airlines, Pan Am and Carnival, filed for bankruptcy protection and ceased scheduled flight operations in February 1998. The operating certificate used for the first reincarnated Pan Am was abandoned in favor of the acquired Carnival operating certificate. Pan Am, now operating with the Carnival certificate, quickly resumed limited charter operations while new owner Guilford Transportation Industries of Massachusetts acquired certain assets of the bankrupt companies after court approval. The new company emerged from bankruptcy in June 1998 and discontinued the use of the Carnival Brand name for the Pan Am name and logo instead. Guilford ceased operating Pan Am and relinquished its original Carnival airworthiness certificate on November 1, 2004. Operations were transferred to Boston-Maine Airways, which resumed 727 service under the "Pan Am Clipper Connection" brand from February 17, 2005.