An event thats been in the making since last October’s Saab 2000 crash has finally ended. Ravn Alaska has ceased all operations and laid off the rest of their employees. Ravn Alaska began suffering criticism and finical after October of 2019 they crashed a Saab 2000 in Unalaska, Alaska killing one person. 72 hours ago the Airlines retired their 14 CFR 135 operation and parked all their 135 certificated aircraft in Palmer, and Fairbanks Alaska. This also allowed the airlines to park 8 of their 11 Dash-8s and only began to service a few communities with 3 Dash 8s. Breaking right now Ravn has officially ended operations closing their doors.
In a statement released early Sunday afternoon, a spokesperson for RavnAir Group said the company will have to “temporarily lay off all remaining staff until the company is in a position to cover the costs of rehiring, resuming flights and operating to the many communities it serves throughout the state.”
This includes all three airlines that run under the RavnAir Group — RavnAir Alaska, PenAir and RavnAir Connect
Ravn was formally known as Era Aviation prior to the New York Company, Corvus Airlines buying them.
Ravn was founded in 1948 as Economy Helicopters, The company was founded by Carl Brady, when he flew the first commercial helicopter to Alaska to work on a mapping contract for the U.S. government. In the years that followed, Economy Helicopters renamed itself Era Helicopters and the company saw most of its business by supporting off shore oil operations and the Alyeska Pipeline. During the Pipeline the company bought a fleet of Dash 6 Twin Otters and Covair 540s.
After the construction of the pipeline, Era saw an opportunity to scheduled passenger service, which first started in May 1983. The Convair planes were used for service to Valdez, Kenai, Kodiak, Cordova, and Homer. The Twin Otter fleet was based out of Bethel and operated service to many of the small communities surrounding it. In 1988, Era Helicopters formally changed its name to Era Aviation. In 2009 the company filled for Chapter 11 and then was bought out by HoTH Inc. In January 2014, the company went through an identity change from Era and rebranded to Ravn.
Oh extremely they basically left 150+ villages stranded, we have a theory Ravn tried to make as many people as they could mad. One of my pilots use to own PenAir before they were bought by Ravn and he said he has never seen so much hate towards one Airlines even when Mark Air was bad
A family friend of mine knows the guy who I think used to own Ravn. It’s a shame. At the same time I’m not super surprised. The amount of delay horror stories I’ve heard about them is crazy. I always flew Alaska instead of them because from pretty much every perspective they were just better. It sucks having watched the decline.
Tbh I’m just more concerned that the Dash 8s that they fly are just going to be sent to the scrapyard which I don’t want to see happen because they are still nice(ish) planes. Who knows, maybe someone will buy them and pick up where Ravn left off, serving the rural communities of the great Alaskan wilderness.
I’ve heard through a Facebook fried this news as well. Sad, but hoping that it really is a temporary move. @RotorGuy You may know who this is. Spoken to you before about him working for PenAir.
Here’s our thinking. When Era became Corvus (Ravn) they began charging the residents higher to travel, customer service decline same as safety. After them crashing the 2000 killing that dude in DUT that hurt them pretty bad.
With their sudden announcement 72 hrs ago they shut down their 135 operation and only flying 3 dashed to a few community they lost respect and trust for them thus not going be welcoming anymore business.
The 20-30 villages I’ve talked to this morning was furious and don’t plan to reuse them if they do come back. The era (no pun intended) has ended, if Corvus does come back it won’t be as big and will fail next few years.
Its a shame because I loved the Flying Wild Alaska series on Discovery Channel (I recommend you guys watching it!). The Twetos must be pretty disappointed and sad that this airline became one of many affected by the virus and bad management.
