Corporate

Our History

In January 1994, at the airlines 1st anniversary, Hubs had been established in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, and Dallas. It was soon after this 1st anniversary that we began to see a steady decline in the number of pilots and the shut down of many popular hubs such as Boston and San Francisco. This sort of attrition would prove to be normal in the virtual airline industry, and is the second major cause of here today, gone tomorrow VA start-ups. Although growth for the airline seemed promising in the second quarter with the opening of the Denver Hub, reopening of the Boston Hub, the brief reopening of the San Francisco Hub, and active negotiations to open international hubs, the airline continued to suffer from this pilot attrition and and a lack of management attention, which would prove to be the largest factor in the failure of many virtual airlines in the years to follow.

In May of 1994, founder Andrew Phillips resigned his position as president, citing a lack of time to give to the airline. Matthew Eppink was hand picked to replace him and took over the reigns of leadership, but only temporarily. In August of 1995 Brad Hodges was made President of the newly named Atlantic Skies International. In July of 1997 the company was reorganized with the position of president being replaced by chairman in order to align the airline with current practices in the business community.

We enjoyed many prosperous years under Mr. Hodges' leadership, and then, in April, 1998, Chairman Hodges resigned his position and Tim Cailloux became the latest leader of the 700+ organization. During the months of April through June, however, Atlantic Skies International began to see not only high attrition rates, but slow progress to meet the needs of the airline. The two big problems all VAs face were rearing their heads once gain.

Citing reason of time, Chairman Cailloux stepped down and former Chairman Brad Hodges returned. Atlantic Skies International was renamed Atlantic Skies and during the last half of July, 1999 the company was reorganized and operations moved to a new headquarters at Salt Lake City International.

In early 2000, Atlantic Skies found itself going through still further changes. Atlantic Aerospace Corporation, one of the first virtual airline holding companies, was formally organized in July of that year, and Atlantic Skies made it's primary carrier. Subsidiary airlines also added at the time included Atlantic Charters, based in Miami, Florida; New England Express, based in Boston, Massachusetts; and Atlantic Aerospace, based at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Each of these subsidiary airlines brought to AAC a unique quality.

In September of 2000, Atlantic Aerospace Corporation purchased Golden Airlines from Chairways Corporation in an effort to expand its feeder service in the midwest United States, specifically those areas east of the Rockies and west of the Mississippi River. Golden, originally a small regional airline, had seen expansion plans bring it somewhat unsuccessfully into the international marketplace. With the purchase, AAC scaled it down to a size better suited to its purpose.

The following January, Brad Hodges announced that he was resigning his position as Chairman and Owner in order to accept the deputy director position at SimNASA. On January 15 2001, Jerry Halladay, a long time pilot and strong voice in management, stepped up to the plate and took control as Owner and Chairman of AAC.

Changes came quickly after that. Patrick Riley, a fairly new employee, joined management as the corporation's chief planning officer and immediately began suggesting changes. Chairman Halladay, whose interests lay primarily in the day-to-day operations of the corporation, recognized that this new upstart had not only the drive but the creative skills to make broad and lasting positive changes. Stepping down, he handed Atlantic Aerospace Corporation over, and in March of 2001 Patrick Riley became the sixth person in the company's history to hold the top leadership position.

Jerry Halladay continues to serve on the board of directors as CEO/Owner, and takes an active role in management.

In 2002, with the 10^th anniversary of the founding of Atlantic Skies Airlines rapidly approaching, a discussion was held amongst the Atlantic Aerospace Corporation board of directors. Many virtual airline holding companies had been established since AAC had been formed, and enough time had passed to recognise that the paradigm simply did not work. It made for a very thinly spread management force and pilot attention suffered as a result. With the advent of more sophisticated automation techniques, this gap between the pilots and the va management would only become greater. In the real world of airline management the resources exist to give your clientele the attention they need in order for your company to garner a great amount of consumer loyalty, but the one thing the management of many virtual airlines simply do not understand, is that this is not the real world of airline management. There is a completely different dynamic at work in this industry.

The decision was made early that year to amalgamate all AAC subsidiary divisions under the Atlantic Skies name and to dissolve Atlantic Aerospace Corporation completely. We were going back to our roots.

On January 4^th, 2003, Atlantic Aerospace Corporation ceased to be and Atlantic Skies assumed all of its assets and holdings.

As Microsoft® Flight Simulator continues to evolve, so must the virtual airline industry that has grown around it. It's no longer a matter of attemtping to emulate the full and complete operations of our real-world counterparts, but recognising that doing so is simply not possible, and is, in fact, unadvisable. Atlantic Skies has always been at the leading edge of virtual airline development, and will continue to do so well into the 21^st century.