_Logo.svg){kind=logo} | |||||||
 PSA AirlinesCRJ900 operated forAmerican Eagle | |||||||
| |||||||
| Founded | 1979; 47 years ago (1979) (asVee Neal Airlines) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AOC # | VNAA111A | ||||||
| Hubs | |||||||
| Focus cities | Dayton | ||||||
| Frequent-flyer program | AAdvantage | ||||||
| Alliance | Oneworld (affiliate) | ||||||
| Fleet size | 140 | ||||||
| Destinations | 71 | ||||||
| Parent company | American Airlines Group | ||||||
| Headquarters | Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. | ||||||
| Key people | Dion Flannery (President)[1] | ||||||
| Employees | 4,919 (2024) | ||||||
| Website | www | ||||||
PSA Airlines, Inc. is an Americanregional airline headquartered atCharlotte-Douglas International Airport inCharlotte, North Carolina. In January 2025, it was announced its headquarters would be moved fromDayton, Ohio to Charlotte. The airline is a wholly owned subsidiary of theAmerican Airlines Group and it is paid by fellow group memberAmerican Airlines to staff, operate and maintain aircraft used onAmerican Eagle flights that are scheduled, marketed and sold by American Airlines.
PSA Airlines operates a fleet consisting of exclusivelyBombardier regional jet aircraft. The company has a team of more than 5,000 employees, operating more than 800 daily flights to nearly 100 destinations.
The airline is named afterPacific Southwest Airlines (commonly known as PSA), one of the predecessors of today's American Airlines, to protect the trademark.
Named after its owner Vee Neal Frey,Vee Neal Airlines was established inLatrobe, Pennsylvania, and received anair operator's certificate in 1979. At first, the company operated as afixed-base operator, and later added scheduled service between Latrobe andPittsburgh with aCessna 402 in May 1980.[2]
Following theAirline Deregulation Act of 1978, nearbyErie, Pennsylvania, saw a decline in service, and Vee Neal saw an opportunity. The company made several unsuccessful attempts to start a new airline operation out ofErie International Airport usingEmbraer EMB 110 Bandeirante aircraft. A breakthrough would finally come in April 1983 whenUSAir announced it would further reduce frequencies out of Erie and would discontinue nonstop service to Chicago from Erie. Vee Neal Airlines was able to raiseventure capital from a group of civic and business leaders, investors and corporations in the Erie area. The money was used to purchase sixBritish Aerospace Jetstream 31 aircraft, which would operate out of Erie.
In December 1983, the airline was renamed to Jetstream International Airlines (JIA) after it took delivery of its first two Jetstream aircraft. The next year, the company relocated its maintenance department and corporate headquarters from Latrobe to Erie.
Jetstream established a network of routes between Erie andChicago,Cleveland,Detroit,Harrisburg,Newark,Philadelphia,Pittsburgh, andWashington, D.C. In addition, Jetstream provided service betweenYoungstown, Ohio, and both airports in Detroit.
The airline struggled financially, but on September 26, 1985, it secured a deal withPiedmont Airlines to operate flights under the Piedmont Commuter brand connecting Erie with Piedmont's Baltimore and Dayton hubs and Youngstown with Baltimore.
Still suffering financially, the next year Piedmont offered to buy Jetstream in a deal that closed on August 1, 1986. Piedmont immediately pivoted Jetstream's business model, making it a Piedmont Commuter feeder for their Dayton hub on September 15, 1986. In 1987, Jetstream once again moved its corporate headquarters, this time to its new base of operations in Dayton.
Parent company Piedmont Airlines was purchased by USAir in November 1987 and was fully merged into the airline on August 5, 1989. After the merger, Jetstream International Airlines started to operate under theUSAir Express brand.[2]
In the early 1990s, the airline began to replace its namesake Jetstream aircraft, first with leasedEmbraer EMB 120 aircraft, and later with the purchase ofDornier 328 aircraft. Reflecting that change, USAir announced in November 1995, that it would rename Jetstream International Airlines "PSA Airlines". The name change allowed USAir to protect the brandPacific Southwest Airlines (commonly known as just PSA), which USAir had purchased at about the same time that it purchased Piedmont. USAir had already assigned the name Piedmont Airlines to Henson Airlines in 1993. By March 1996, the last Jetstream aircraft was replaced and PSA's stable of 25 Dornier 328 aircraft was the largest Dornier fleet in the world.
_AN0175474.jpg)
In February 1997, USAir changed their name toUS Airways, and PSA transitioned to operating under the name ofUS Airways Express.
On August 11, 2002, US Airways filed forChapter 11 bankruptcy protection. During the reorganization, PSA was chosen to transition to a fleet of regional jet aircraft, including theBombardier CRJ200 andCRJ700. The last Dornier 328 was retired from the PSA fleet in September 2004.[2]
.jpg)
US Airways entered a second Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 12, 2004, and was acquired byAmerica West Airlines in 2005 in areverse merger.
In February 2005, PSA opened itsCharlotte crew base.[2] The recently opened Philadelphia crew and maintenance bases also closed in September 2005.[2] The Philadelphia crew base has since reopened, but maintenance is provided on-site by contract maintenance company STS Aviation Group.[citation needed]
In January 2008, US Airways flight activity at the Pittsburgh International Airport was significantly reduced due to market condition changes. US Airways mainline employees took over the US Airways Express flight operations at the airport and PSA ceased providing ground-handling services at the airport.[2]
In 2015, after the merger of American Airlines and US Airways, PSA became part ofAmerican Airlines Group and started to operateAmerican Eagle flights.
In August 2015, PSA Airlines announced a maintenance base would be established at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.[3]
In August 2016, PSA Airlines announced a new 45,000-square-foot maintenance base would be opening in late 2016 at the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport (GSP).[4]
On January 29, 2025, hours before theirfirst crash, PSA Airlines announced that it plans to move its corporate headquarters to Charlotte, North Carolina from Dayton, Ohio by January 2026; most daily departures are from, and almost all training is in Charlotte. The new headquarters is to have 400 employees; all 350 Dayton headquarters staff have until the end of April 2025 to accept an invitation to move there. The airline will maintain a maintenance hangar and flight crew location in Dayton, with a total of 550 employees.[5][6]
As of January 2025, the PSA Airlines fleet consists of these aircraft:[7]
| Aircraft | In Service | Orders | Passengers | Notes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F | Y+ | Y | Total | ||||
| Bombardier CRJ700 | 60 | — | 9 | 12 | 44 | 65 | |
| Bombardier CRJ900 | 80 | 14 | 12 | 24 | 40 | 76 | Aircraft orders from CityJet and Mesa Orders are for used aircraft.[8] |
| Total | 140 | 14 | |||||
In December 2013, American Airlines announced that it had ordered 30 Bombardier CRJ900 jets and was assigning them to PSA Airlines.[9] The airline began taking deliveries of them in the second quarter of 2014 to finish initial delivery in 2015. In addition, American acquired options to purchase up to 40 additional CRJ-900 aircraft scheduled to be delivered in 2015 through 2016.[10] Due to theCOVID-19 pandemic, theCRJ200 fleet consisting of 35 aircraft was retired at an accelerated rate.[11]
As of January 2025, PSA Airlines uses these airports as crewmember domiciles:
As of April 2024, PSA Airlines has maintenance bases at the following airports:
Members ofOneworld | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current members |
|  | ||||||
| Future members | ||||||||
| Former members | ||||||||
| Suspended members | ||||||||
