Talk about an unexpected opportunity! I went up for an hour-long local flight and before going up, I had the rare opportunity to photograph a Dornier 328JET owned by Taos Air and operated by Advanced Air that apparently flew into Salem this morning!
Taos Air is a virtual airline operating a seasonal scheduled public and niche air charter service out of Taos Regional Airport in Taos, New Mexico. The airline is owned by Taos Ski Valley, Inc., an alpine ski resort located in Taos, New Mexico and not surprisingly, is used to promote skiing and bring skiers to the Taos-area. The resort pays for operation and upkeep of the aircraft while the Town of Taos provides terminal access, marketing, de-icing service, and a hangar. During their inaugural year of operations, Taos Air offered services to Taos from Dallas-Love Field and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport; Ultimate Air Shuttle was contracted to operate a single Dornier 328JET for the 2018-2019 ski season.
In early-2019 Taos Air was also involved in efforts to bring tourism to the Taos-area and provide flights for the summer season with grant money being raised to . However the grant was never was not disbursed nor did summer flights begin due unavailability of aircraft and pilots from Ultimate Air Shuttle. As a result, Taos Air resumed services for the 2019-2020 ski season with a new contractor, namely, Advanced Air with two Dornier 328JET aircraft. At the start of 2020, Taos Air also added two new destinations in California to bring skiers to Taos: Hawthorne Municipal Airport and McClellan-Palomar Airport in Carlsbad. These services were short-lived however, as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic forced all the ski-related public charter services to be suspended. Sadly, with the ongoing pandemic and the resultant uncertainties associated with travel restrictions varying by state, the 2020-2021 ski season flights were also recently cancelled by the virtual airline.
As for Advanced Air, it is a fairly-new scheduled commuter and private charter airline based in Hawthorne, California that began operations in 2018; it is also the owner of the Hawthorne-based FBO Jet Center Los Angeles. While the airline began flying in 2018, the company itself was founded back in 2005 and began California shuttle services in 2015. Advanced Air began scheduled operations after winning it's first Essential Air Service (EAS) contract to provide flights to Phoenix and Albuquerque for Silver City, New Mexico in October 2018. Their scheduled fleet primarily consists of six Beechcraft Super King Air 350s as well as Taos Air's two Dornier 328 JETs (pending seasonal availability). Advanced Air also has a fleet for private charter and shuttle use consisting of two LearJet 45s and a Bombardier Challenger 300, as well as five Pilatus PC-12s for select shuttle routes in partnership with Surf Air, another California-based commuter airline that operates a business model of offering unlimited flight services for a fixed monthly membership fee (Surf Air owns the PC-12s).
Preview:
 |
| Advanced Air (d/b/a Taos Air) Fairchild-Dornier 328-300 328JET (N192TS) parked on the ramp. Arrived this morning as WSN92 from Salt Lake City. My first time seeing the Taos Air livery and I'm quite thrilled about it because it was totally unexpected and a rare sight around here! Also my first time catching an Advanced Air aircraft! |
 |
| First delivered to Atlantic Coast Airlines in February 2002 as N452FJ and flew on the behalf of United Express. Starting in December of that same year, the United Express livery was removed and the aircraft was painted Atlantic Coast Airline's own livery and flew as a private shuttle under the ACA Private Shuttle branding. |
 |
| After ACA reinvented itself as Independence Air, the aircraft was transferred to the same in August 2004; it went into storage at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina that same year after Independence Air essentially dumped their 328JET fleet. It then flew for Aviando Services, a private company from September 2007. Acquired by TSVA Holdings, the holding company for Taos Valley Ski, Inc. in October 2019 and re-registered to the current N-number. So unlike their inaugural year of operations (with Ultimate Air Shuttle providing the aircraft and crew), Taos Air essentially owns this Dornier 328JETs outright and contracts Advanced Air to fly it. |
No comments:
Post a Comment