Republic Announces Plans for Lynx
Republic Airways today announced it will transition the regional service provided by Lynx Aviation Bombardier Q400 turboprop aircraft to Embraer 170 and 190 jet service provided by Republic Airlines. The Company will remove three Bombardier Q400 turboprop aircraft from service effective April 6. Another three aircraft will be removed from service on April 19. In addition, Republic will terminate the leases of seven smaller regional jets and return them to the lessor.
The transition to jet service will improve the Company’s ability to operate in highly-contested markets in which the Q400 operates at a competitive disadvantage to competitors’ jet service. The changeover, including the decision to terminate the leases on its seven remaining CRJ200 aircraft operated by Chautauqua, also will support the Company’s ongoing program to simplify and optimize its fleet resources across its entire network, improving aircraft utilization and cost efficiencies company- wide.
Service will continue to all current Lynx destinations with the exception of Fargo, N.D., and Tulsa, Okla., where the company will cease operations on April 5.
Republic expects operations at Lynx to be phased out by mid-September.
These changes will result in the reduction in April of approximately 175 positions at Lynx. All areas of the operation will be impacted, including flight crews, operations, customer service and support personnel. In September, when Lynx ceases operations, some customer service and maintenance employees will have the opportunity to continue with Republic or Frontier. The remaining positions will be eliminated and given hiring preference for open positions throughout the Republic Airways network.
“Lynx employees have done an outstanding job of providing service to a number of regional communities and have provided important passenger connections to Frontier’s network,” said Republic Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Wayne Heller. “Unfortunately, afterextensive analysis and months of efforts to grow the business, we concluded we could not efficiently operate a fleet of 11 Q400 aircraft. Converting service from the Q400 fleet to jet service allows us to better utilize our existing aircraft resources and lower our cost of operating and maintaining multiple fleet types, while providing our customers with outstanding jet service.”
Heller concluded, “These changes will better position the Company to sustain the kind of growth we’ve already begun and that our employees and customers expect as we continue our work to rebuild and expand the Frontier and Midwest networks.”
In another move related to the integration of Frontier’s operations into the Republic Airways Holdings, 142 Denver-based Frontier employees today received WARN notices related to previous announcements of consolidations and job relocations.