Pinnacle Airlines - Research Paper Example

A brief history of Pinnacle Airlines would be useful. As mentioned earlier, it was founded in 1985, and was initially named Express Airways I. By the next year, the airline had increased its fleet to 27 Saab turboprops, and had signed a partnership with Northwest Airlines and thus carrying its passengers too (Pinnacle Airlines Corp, n.d). By 1997, Northwest Airlines purchased Express Airways I, and the new CEO set about to retrain Express Airways I’s employees (Pinnacle Airlines Corp, n.d). Throughout this period, Express Airways I had been using turboprops, and only in 2000 did it shift to using small jets when it purchased a Canadair Regional Jet (Pinnacle Airlines Corp, n.d). These CRJs are beneficial in the sense that they are smaller in size than the Saab turboprops that Express Airway I was using, and offered satisfactory “jet speed, economy and comfort,” and could “serve cities that cant support the big jets,” (Warren, 1995).

In 2002, Express Airways I changed its named to Pinnacle Airlines, and embarked on a project to change everything about the airline’s public image, culture and so on (Pinnacle Airlines Corp, n.d). By 2004, Pinnacle Airlines was making revenues of more than $630 million, had more than a thousand pilots, and a hundred CRJs; it was also recognized as one of fastest growing regional airline in the US (Pinnacle Airlines Corp, n.d). Additionally, in 2003, Pinnacle Airlines was “incorporated as a Delaware corporation,” and by 2010 it came to control Mesaba, Pinnacle and Colgan airlines (Pinnacle Airlines Corp 10k, 2010).

Pinnacle also signed capacity purchase agreements with Delta, and provided flights to Delta’s main airports in New York City, Atlanta and so on, and by 2010 it was using 126 CRJs to be used as “connection carriers,” to numerous states in the US as well as cities in Mexico and Canada (Pinnacle Airlines