Abstract
American Eagle Airlines got started operating in the 1980s. From now, we can see American Eagle Airlines’ logo mark a many types of aircrafts not only in the U.S. but also Canada or Mexico. But actually to say, now American Eagle Airlines’ name changed to Envoy Air. Then why can we see American Eagle Airlines’ logo in the airports. American Eagle Airlines is flying through 1,500 flight in a day and going to nearly 160 cities. This means American Eagle Airlines is one of the biggest airlines in the U.S. So far, I introduce this company as an airline, but American Eagle Airlines is now used as a brand name for some of regional airlines. But American Eagle Airlines had some problems during 2008-2011. I’m also talking about American Eagle Airlines issue in the paper. American Eagle Airlines is necessary in this aviation era because this company really helps for small regional airlines.
Key Words; American Eagle Airlines (EGF), brand, regional flights
American Eagle Airlines’ issues and missions
American Eagle Airlines’ Overview
History
American Eagle Airlines, which is the first strategy of new services that was not operated by another wholly-owned subsidiary. After the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, mainline carriers began operating for small markets as regional carriers. (Linares, 2015) American Eagle Airlines started operating in the 1980s. The American Eagle Airlines’ first flight was flown on November 1, 1984 from Fayetteville, Arkansas to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (Linares, 2015). For the following text, the “EGF” from ICAO code will be cited for brevity. During that time, EGF was flown by Simmons and Wings West. However these flight were done by different airlines, we can book with using EGF code. When American Airlines got TWA, AA wanted to continue to use them as a part of EGF. But they couldn’t do that due to some reasons, so AA began operating American Connection, yet it went in to bankruptcy in a decade. Then, regional flight began to be operated by EGF name. Now many airlines fly as EGF, which including Air Wisconsin, Compass Airlines, Envoy Air, ExpressJet, Mesa Airlines, Piedmont Airlines, PSA Airlines, Republic Airlines, SkyWest Airlines, Trans States Airlines. In addition to these company, in the future, the other 2 regional carriers PSA and Piedment which are operated under AAG umbrella will also participate to EGF brand. EGF has both meanings a brand name and independent carrier. This means todays’ form of EGF is not a company name but a brand name because the independent company name has renamed to Envoy Air from 2014.
Region and organization
EGF’s hub airports are JFK, LaGuardia, Raleigh/Durham, Boston, Miami, San Juan, Dallas/Fort Worth, Los Angeles and Chicago O’Hare. Miami is the newest one of these. They have many kind of aircrafts, including Bombardier CRJ 700, Bombardier CRJ 200, Embraer 135, Embraer 140, Embraer 145 and Embraer E175, which are known as a modern jets in the world. But the first flight was used a Convair 580 turboprop that has already stopped operation. All of these are classified into a narrow body aircraft in Aviation. In 2011, EGF’s 118 aircrafts of 281 are 50-seat Embraer 145s. EGF has 59 44-seat Embraer 140s and 21 37-seat Embraer 135s. These are really small airplanes for aviation. But EGF has also 47 65-seat Bombardier CRJ 700s. (Compart, 2011) During flight, they provide a flight magazine and it is free to over 40 million passengers each year. EGF operates around 1,500 flights in a day and goes nearly to 160 cities including the U.S., Canada, the Bahamas, Mexico and the Caribbean. Furthermore, EGF is participating with Oneworld® alliance and this is consist of many major airlines, such as American Airlines, Japan Airlines, British Airways and so on. So passengers can fly without using many different airlines. If they are one of the members of those airlines, they can fly with much confidence and no afraid of earning their mileage points.
American Eagle Airlines’ issues
For passengers’ problem
But EGF is elected one of bad airlines for losing passengers’ bags. “It came last in a list compiled by the government which showed that it lost 8.82 bags per 1,000 passengers. It lost a total of 103,000 bags.”(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2884166/Envoy-Airlines-used-American-Eagle-named-WORST-carrier-losing-bag.html) From this article, EGF is the worst airline about their baggage losing in the U.S. Table 1 shows the ranking of companies about rate of losing bags. As you can see, EGF’s rate of losing one’s baggage is much higher than any other airline carrier. This is one of the issues for EGF because passengers are not willing to lose their bags during their travels.
Punishment
Flight delaying problem. The Department of Transportation decided to punish EGF because of airlines’ runway delays for the first time in November of 2011. Then EGF had to pay fine of their delaying. Actually, EGF delayed 608 passengers on some waiting airplanes in a row that ran 18 minutes over the time limits. And that late of 18 minutes cost $16.7 million in fines. This means $27,500 per passenger. When this happened, the new rules had just begun and this is the for the first time regulation for the Department of transportation. Table 3 shows the rate of delaying about EGF as same as Envoy Air. Almost flights of EGF, flight is running on-time. But about 5%, delaying caused by air carrier.
Maintenance punishment. Only the past a year from this punishment, EGF was proposed a $2.9 million fine from the Federal Aviation Administration because EGF had to repair their airplanes. (Stoller, 2010) EGF flew between February and May of 2008 without repaired four airplanes of main landing-gear doors. And EGF continued flying 217of their flight after this problem. On February 1st 2010, EGF had to pay fine of $2.5 million for operating at least 154 passengers flight without adequately ensuring the weight of baggage was calculated properly. (Stoller, 2010) But in the past 6 years of flights, FAA fined $28.2 million and against for 25 airlines about their maintenance violations. EGF’s spokeswoman whose name is Andrea Huguely said that “The case didn’t involve a safety of flight issue. The airlines is disappointed that the FAA proposed a fine that wasn’t warranted.” For all airplanes, what is most important thing is that fly as safe as possible. Airplanes’ mechanic will say to be safe in a case of such a little failure. But many passengers tell not to be confident being flown by airplanes. In aviation industry, confidence of customer would contribute to their profits by increasing them. So maintenance is occupied for responsibilities for airlines.
Computer Problems
American Airlines group companies had problems with its computer systems on September 17 2015. (Mouawad, 2015)This is the latest big problem for their companies because this caused many computer systems including their website and check-in counters which located in their three hubs, Chicago, Dallas and Miami. In April of this year, a similar case as this occurred in flight dispatcher’s computer. Nowadays computers are needed for most of modernized aircrafts because it can provide information to the passengers, pilots or people who are involving with this industry that is essential for many people. Indeed, it’s much difficult not to cause problems of computers, but airlines really needs to defeat them.
New initiative of EGF
Now EGF began new operating from November 2 2015. That connects between Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Central Illinois Regional Airport at Bloomington-Normal. It flies one-round trip in a day. Paul Harmon, Chairman of the Bloomington-Normal Airport Authority said “At a time of extreme difficulty in the airline industry, we are pleased with the confidence American Eagle is showing in the market served by CIRA.” (http://hub.aa.com/en/nr/pressrelease/american-eagle-airlines-to-begin-service-between-bloomington-ill-and-dallasfort-worth) While EGF has already flown between Chicago O’Hare airport and Central Illinois Regional Airport, Peter Bowler, President and CEO of American Eagle said that “We are pleased to begin this new service to the heartland of Illinois.” (http://hub.aa.com/en/nr/pressrelease/american-eagle-airlines-to-begin-service-between-bloomington-ill-and-dallasfort-worth) To make a new flight schedule is difficult to begin operation. In now, EGF is more and more growing in an aviation society. In addition, EGF was elected one of the best airlines all over the world. EGF got selected to 78th by U.K.-based Skytrax. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hoppercom/these-are-the-best-airlin_b_7833258.html) Table 2 shows ranking about elected as best airlines in the U.S.Now our world has tremendous number of aviation airlines, then EGF is elected. So EGF is completely major airlines, which make efforts for the world wide society, and aviation industry cannot say without EGF.
EGF challenging
Aircrafts. After EGF was established, EGF would not own the aircraft, and EGF has mainly responsibility for maintenance of aircrafts. So EGF needs to find clients other than American Airlines. But now, as I already wrote in overview, EGF found a way to survive as a large regional carrier.
Cost. EGF also needed to reduce its labor cost because at this time EGF has higher rate than the regional airline average. (Compart, 2011) EGF was struggling with labor seniority because in this age EGF was not big company enough to hire many of employees, but EGF hired new ones and it is much costly when it is about EGF’s pilots. The analyst, Ray Niedl, said that “The regional airlines are doing drastic restructurings to not only promote growth but to also basically survive.” (Compart, 2011)
Rename. As you know, EGF is the brand name being used by some airlines. And the name of “American Eagle Airlines” has changed to “Envoy” in the spring of 2014. This is because EGF has two types of meaning so that many people would confuse about this. So making people less confusing, Envoy was started used as a company name.
Management Deal
American Eagle management and pilots union officials reached an agreement that guarantees the regional carrier will receive 60 new Embraer 175 airplanes that parent company American Airlines Group ordered in 2014. (Lindgren, 2014) The regional carries was not provided jets after regional jet order was first announced. EGF has been forced to fight off competition to seek larger aircrafts. But in this competition, SkyWest won a contract in 2012 as well as Republic that are under American Eagle brand.