Aeropelican Air Services

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Aeropelican Air Services

IATA OT	ICAO PEL	Callsign Aeropelican
Founded		1968
Hubs		Newcastle Airport
Focus cities		Sydney Airport Newcastle Airport
Fleet size		5 (March 2007)
Destinations		3 (domestic)
Parent company		IAP Group
Headquarters		Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia
Key people		Paul Graham (General Manager)
Website: www.aeropelican.com.au

Aeropelican Air Services is an airline based at Newcastle Airport (Williamtown), New South Wales in Australia. It is a commuter airline operating regular direct flights to and from Sydney with a flight time of 50 minutes each way.

1 History
2 Services
3 Fleet
4 External links
5 References

[edit] History

The airline was established on 23 October 1968 and started operations on 1 July 1971.

It originally was owned by the Newcastle based Hilder family, however in 1981 the airline was sold to a company associated with the now defunct Ansett Australia. It later became a wholly owned subsidiary of Ansett Australia.

Aeropelican's main route has historically been between Sydney and Newcastle Belmont Airport, in Newcastle's southern suburbs, with high frequency service using Twin Otters. Aeropelican originally owned this airport.

Following the collapse of Ansett Australia in September 2001 Aeropelican was placed into Administration. It is wholly owned by International Air Parts (IAP) Group who purchased the company from the Administrators in 2002.

In 2004 an Embraer Bandeirante started services to augment the two Twin Otters used before. In 2005, a Metro aircraft was also added.

Aeropelican commenced services from Sydney to Newcastle's other airport, Williamtown, to the north of the city on March 1st, 2004 and discontinued service from Belmont in March 2005.

In 2006, 3 Jetstream 32s were ordered, with plans to announce new services. In December 2006, Aeropelican was awarded the Sydney to Inverell route licence.