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| Founded | 1981; 44 years ago (1981) | ||||||
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| Ceased operations | June 30, 2010; 15 years ago (2010-06-30) | ||||||
| Hubs | Miami International Airport | ||||||
| Parent company | MatlinPatterson | ||||||
| Headquarters | Miami-Dade County, Florida, U.S. | ||||||
| Key people | Luis Soto (President)[2] | ||||||
| Employees | 1000 | ||||||
| Website | www | ||||||
Arrow Air was a passenger andcargo airline based in Building 712 on the grounds ofMiami International Airport (MIA) inMiami-Dade County, Florida.[3] The airline was started in 1981 as the latest in a series of aviation businesses controlled by George E. Batchelor, starting in 1946 with an earlier California-based airlineArrow Airways, anirregular air carrier shut down by the Federal government in 1951. Batchelor saw Arrow Air as a re-start of Arrow Airways, though they were separate corporations and separatecertificates.
At different times over the years, Arrow Air operated over 90 weekly scheduled cargo flights, had a strong charter business and at one point operated scheduled international and domestic passenger flights.[4] Its main base was Miami International Airport.[5] Arrow Air ceased operations on June 29, 2010, and filed forChapter 11 bankruptcy protection on July 1, 2010.[6] It was then liquidated.[7]
George E. Batchelor was a pilot for theAir Transport Command during World War II.[8]. He foundedArrow Airways inRedondo Beach, California on the last day of 1946.[9] Arrow Airways was anirregular air carrier, a hybrid charter/scheduled airline regulated by theCivil Aeronautics Board (CAB), a now-defunct Federal agency which tightly controlled almost all US commercial air transportation at the time. Arrow Airways was prominent among those irregular air carriers that (illegally, see below) offered transcontinental scheduled air service.[10] It called its aircraft Arrowliners.[11] In the 12 months ending June 1950, it had the sixth largestrevenue passenger miles out of 49 irregular airlines. At the end of that period, Arrow owned a singleCurtiss C-46,[12] but it was known to have flown aDouglas DC-4 leased fromCalifornia Eastern Airways during the same period.[11] In addition, it's also known (see next paragraph) to have had twoDouglas DC-3s during those twelve months.
In 1949, Batchelor established a second airline,California Arrow Airlines (CAA), as anintrastate airline and started flyingLos Angeles-Oakland-Sacramento 23 May. In addition, CAA servedFresno for about a month starting in August.[13] CAA had two DC-3s leased from Arrow Airways.[14] CAA was one of eight intrastate airlines that started service that year in California, all failing quickly other thanCalifornia Central Airlines andPacific Southwest Airlines.[15] In an article dated December 7, Batchelor was quoted saying that CAA was just about breaking even, that it was "it is hardly worthwhile operating."[16] December 7 was to be CAA's last day of operation.[13]
On December 7, CAA suffered a devastating DC-3 crash in which Batchelor's own wife and two-year old son died.
Meanwhile, the CAB had launched an investigation into Arrow Airways. On 16 January 1951, the CAB revoked Arrow's "Letter of Registration" (i.e. certificate) as of February 15, 1951 for illegal operation of scheduled service between New York and Los Angeles and New York and Oakland.[11]
Arrow Airways was initially based atTorrance Municipal Airport (also known as Lomita Flight Strip),[17] but at the end it, and California Arrow Airlines, were based atBurbank.[18][19]
On May 26, 1981, Arrow Air relaunched as a charter airline under Miami's Batchelor Enterprises, whose aviation operations included fixed-base operator (FBO) Batch Air and International Air Leases, Inc., Arrow's parent company. (Batch Air eventually became owned by an employee group and was sold to Greenwich Air in 1987 for more than $30 million.) Arrow added scheduled passenger services in April 1982, beginning with California-Montego Bay.
Low fares were causing the company to lose money. In October 1984, it canceled several routes, includingTampa–London. At the same time, the company reoriented its route structure from an east–west alignment to a north–south one, reported Aviation Week & Space Technology. San Juan,Puerto Rico, where the company was building a new hub, was the center of the scheduled network, and by the end of 1985 Arrow Air was flying between SJU andAguadilla, Puerto Rico,[20]Montreal,Toronto,New York City,Philadelphia,Boston,Baltimore,Orlando, andMiami. In 1985, more than one million people flew onboard Arrow Air to 245 destinations in 72 countries with the majority of these flights being unscheduled charter service.
Arrow Air was operatingDouglas DC-8 and wide-bodyMcDonnell Douglas DC-10 aircraft at this time. Like other start-ups, Arrow contracted some functions to other airlines.United Airlines trained Arrow Air crews inDenver, and Florida Air supplemented Batch-Air's maintenance work.
The company was approved for military charters in 1984, and in October 1985 won a $13.8 million contract with theDepartment of Defense. This accounted for only a small segment of Arrow's revenues. Most of its business came from scheduled service from Canada and the East Coast toPuerto Rico and Mexico. Commercial charters accounted for another 20 percent or so.
In carrying out its military flights, the airline experienced a large-scale disaster and its second fatal accident and first since the airline's relaunch. On December 12, 1985, one of the company's DC-8scrashed after takeoff in Gander, Newfoundland, killing 248 soldiers of the101st Airborne Division and eight of Arrow's flight crew personnel. The flight had originated inCairo and had taken on fuel in Gander after stopping in Cologne, West Germany. The accident resulted in a great deal of unfavorable media coverage and government scrutiny for the airline. Arrow filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization on February 11, 1986, laying off 400 employees.[21] However, operations continued.
Richard Haberly was named president of Arrow Air in 1987. Arrow'swet lease business—the practice of hiring out planes complete with crews and fuel—began to pick up again. In 1987, Arrow began leasing a DC-8 toLOT Polish Airlines for aWarsaw–New York–Chicago route. It also provided a long-rangeDouglas DC-8-62CF jet toAir Marshall Islands which was operated in a mixed passenger/freightcombi aircraft configuration on flights linking several remote Pacific islands with Honolulu. In early 1991, Arrow was again carrying U.S. troops, this time for the military buildup preceding the war in the Persian Gulf.
Arrow boasted a 98 percent on-time rate and a high degree of customer loyalty. Rates for Latin American cargo fell 15 percent in the early 1990s as U.S. passenger airlinesUnited Airlines andAmerican Airlines paid increased attention to that market. After a few profitable years, Arrow posted losses in 1992 and 1993. Richard Haberly was succeeded as Arrow president in June 1994 by Jonathan D. Batchelor, stepson of chairman and company founder George Batchelor.
In the mid-1990s, Arrow's fleet numbered 18 aircraft includingDouglas DC-8s andBoeing 727-200s (two of which were configured for passengers). Many of the planes were acquired from bankruptEastern Air Lines. The company removed theBoeing 727s from the fleet and began leasingLockheed L-1011 wide-body jets in 1996 when its fleet numbered just nine aircraft. By this time, charter flights for other airlines were accounting for half of Arrow's business.
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Market conditions were not Arrow's only worries. TheFederal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded Arrow in March 1995, charging the carrier had improperly documented maintenance. A company spokesman countered that the grounding was unfair and was related simply to the FAA's request that Arrow prints out a hard copy of its fleet records, which were stored electronically. Company officials blamed the affair on a disgruntled employee who had been fired for theft.
Arrow contracted other carriers to handle its business during the crisis.British Airways, for example, handled the route betweenColumbus, Ohio, andGlasgow, Scotland. Arrow also laid off 368 of its 587 employees. During the shutdown, Arrow lost $3.5 million, plus another $1.5 million in FAA fines.
The FAA allowed the company to begin flying cargo again in June 1995. Soon, Arrow was carrying more international freight at Miami International Airport than any other carrier. It was connectingSan Juan to the Northeast via Hartford,Connecticut; to the Midwest viaColumbus, Ohio; and to the Southeast viaAtlanta.
A restructuring in June 1996 placed Terence Fensome as president and CEO of Arrow Air. Jonathan Batchelor soon took over again as president, but in July 1998 relinquished that role for the positions of chairman and CEO as Guillermo J. "Willy" Cabeza became president and chief operating officer. Cabeza had been vice-president of operations at Arrow.
Arrow failed to profit from the upswing in the economy in 1997. It lost $15.1 million for the year on revenues of $88.3 million. The company had posted losses of $11.3 million in 1996 on revenues of $61.1 million.
Arrow started a new weekly service fromHouston toPeru andEcuador in February 1998.Houston was billing itself as a "Gateway to Latin America" to compete with Miami, which handled 85 percent of cargo traffic to the region. Arrow revenues were $87 million in fiscal 1998.
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After a few difficult years, Arrow was acquired byFine Air Services in early 1999 (the deal was finalized in April) from International Air Leases Inc. for $115 million. Frank and Barry Fine, owners ofFine Air, planned to keep Arrow's brand name viable and continued to emphasize scheduled, rather than charter, cargo service. Included in the purchase were 13Douglas DC-8 jets, fourLockheed L-1011 wide-body jets, 130 jet engines, and spare parts. The buy gave Arrow access to Fine's 133,000-square-foot (12,400 m2) refrigerated distribution facility for handling perishables, which made up the bulk of Latin American cargo.
Unfortunately, Fine Air had its own set of woes resulting froma fatal crash of one of its DC-8s in August 1997. This scuttled Fine's planned $123 million initial public offerings. Rising fuel costs, a downturn in the Latin American market, and debt left over from its Arrow Air acquisition combined to make the airline unflyable. Fine lost $108 million in 2000 on revenues of $152 million, and another $36 million on 2001 revenues of $148 million.
The company filed for bankruptcy on September 27, 2000, and subsequently merged with Arrow Air, Inc., leaving behind the Fine Air Services name. The Fine family would no longer control the company. It emerged from Chapter 11 in May 2002 as a unit of Arrow Air Holdings Corp., a Greenwich,Connecticut, investment group led by Dort Cameron.
Revenues were $148 million in 2001 when Arrow had about 800 employees in Miami and another 200 in other locations. The fleet had grown to 16 DC-8s and twoLockheed L-1011s; the carrier had also begun leasing a pair ofMcDonnell Douglas DC-10s.
The new Arrow was losing $3 million a month, reported Traffic World in early 2002, yet the company aimed to break even by year-end. The withdrawal ofGrupo TACA's freighters from the market provided Arrow with an opportunity to expand services in Central America with some east–west routes. Arrow re-entered the charter business and diversified geographically via partnerships with airlines such asAtlas Air,Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano, and Air Global International (AGI). AGI had been formed in 2001 and leased twoBoeing 747s to carry cargo to South America. Its routes complemented those of Arrow Air, which acquired AGI in March 2002. Operationally, Arrow Air planned to retire itsLockheed L-1011 by 2003 and replace its dozen DC-8s with DC-10s a few years after. In January 2004 Arrow Air filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, but exited in June 2004 after a bankruptcy court approved its restructuring.[5]
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In March 2008, Arrow announced that it entered into a strategic alliance with the firm known asMatlinPatterson Global Opportunities, aprivate equity investment fund which formerly controlled the Brazilian companyVarig Log along with the rebranded ATA Holdings (the parent company ofATA Airlines) which has now been renamedGlobal Aviation Holdings. As of April, indications were MatlinPatterson would beshuttering Arrow Cargo.[22]
Arrow Cargo ceased scheduled operations on June 30, 2010.[23][24] After failing to find a buyer, the company was liquidated.[25]
According to the worldwide edition of theOfficial Airline Guide (OAG), in 1983 Arrow Air was operating scheduled passenger service with stretched SuperDC-8 jets between the U.S. and Europe including nonstop flights betweenLondon Gatwick Airport (LGW) and bothDenver (DEN) andTampa (TPA) and also direct betweenMiami (MIA) and both London Gatwick Airport andAmsterdam (AMS) as well as direct between Tampa and Amsterdam.[26] Also according to the OAG, the airline was flyingBoeing 707 passenger service nonstop between New YorkJFK Airport andGeorgetown, Guyana at this time.[27] By 1984, Arrow Air was operating nonstop Super DC-8 service betweenSan Juan (SJU) andAmsterdam (AMS) in conjunction withSurinam Airways which was flying connecting service between San Juan and its home base atParamaribo at the time.[28] None of these flights were operated on a daily basis but were instead primarily flown several days a week.
14 November 1985; markets inbold indicate starting as of 13 December 1985:[29]
Cargo Solutions (cargo routes & schedules)[30]
Arrow Air operated the following freight services (at January 2005):
The Arrow Cargo fleet includes the following aircraft (at Aug 1, 2009):[31]
| Aircraft | In service | Orders | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boeing 757-200PCF | 3 | — | |
| McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30F | 3 | — | |
| McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30CF | 1 | — | |
| Total | 7 | — |
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Over the years, Arrow Air had in the past operated a variety of aircraft, including:[32]
| Aircraft | Total | Introduced | Retired | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boeing 707-320C | 11 | 1981 | 1985 | |
| Boeing 727-100C | 2 | 1982 | 1984 | |
| Boeing 727-100F | 1 | 1992 | 1994 | |
| Boeing 727-200 | 5 | 1985 | 1997 | |
| Boeing 727-200F | 5 | 1985 | 1996 | |
| Boeing 747-200 | 2 | 2005 | 2005 | Leased fromFocus Air Cargo |
| Boeing 757-200APF | 1 | 2009 | 2009 | |
| Douglas DC-8-54F | 4 | 1981 | 2001 | |
| Douglas DC-8-55F | 1 | 1984 | 2006 | |
| Douglas DC-8-62 | 5 | 1984 | 2005 | |
| Douglas DC-8-62CF | 2 | 1989 | 2004 | |
| Douglas DC-8-62F | 3 | 1983 | 2010 | |
| Douglas DC-8-63F | 7 | 1982 | 2010 | 1 written off asArrow Air Flight 1285R |
| Douglas DC-8-73CF | 1 | 1982 | 1984 | Transferred toGerman Cargo |
| Lockheed L-1011-100F TriStar | 4 | 1996 | 2004 | |
| McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10 | 7 | 1983 | 2010 | |
| McDonnell Douglas DC-10-40 | 3 | 2006 | 2010 |
The livery used when the airline was operating as Arrow Air had a large dark blue 'A' on the aircraft tail, one end of which extended into a line along the fuselage below the window-level and to the nose below the cockpit windows. The remainder of the aircraft was white, with "Arrow Air" titles above the windows forward in red. At the time Arrow Cargo ceased operating, its livery consisted of a white fuselage forward, with blue and green to the rear of the aircraft, and with "Arrow Cargo" titles in green accompanied by a blue logo near the front. N140WE was an Arrow Air plane that was painted all white.[citation needed]
