Compass Airlines is the second US regional airline announcing its shutdown this week after Trans States Airlines announced it would cease flying on April 1st.
The airline, which operates feeder services for American Airlines as American Eagle and for Delta Air Lines under the Delta Connection brand, wrote in a letter to its employees stating that American Airlines has notified the airline of significant Coronavirus-related cuts at its Los Angeles base which would “effectively eliminate all […] flying [from] April 7.” It was therefore decided to shut the airline down at the end of March.
In addition to the cuts at American Airlines, Delta Air Lines has already announced in June 2019 to relocate the twelve remaining Embraer E175 Compass operates for Delta Connection to Republic Airways in a move to simplify its feeder services. The 20 E175 operated by Compass for American Eagle will be transferred to Envoy Air once the scheduled operations end.
Compass Airlines was founded in 2006 after a dispute between Northwest Airlines and pilots union ALPA and began operating Bombardier CRJ200 jets for Northwest Airlink in 2007. After Northwest was taken over by Delta Air Lines, its new owner sold the regional airline to Trans States Holdings (which also owns Trans States Airlines and GoJet Airlines) in 2010, where it continued operating for Delta Connection and in 2015 began flying for American Eagle.
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Jan-Hendrik is an aviation enthusiast from Germany, loves to travel the world and fly on as many aircraft as possible. His first flight was with a Condor 757 to Spain and has been interested in aviation ever since. His fields of expertise are aircraft accidents and passenger experience (PaxEx).