San Francisco, CA – March 23, 2010 – Pacific West Airways announced early this afternoon, in front of a large group of media, friends and staff, the introduction of a brand new Operational Unit.

This Unit, practically referred to as “MOCS” or Maintenance Operation & Commercial Services, based at San Jose, CA will entertain two new services for Pacific West Airways.

“It is with great pleasure that we can announce our first three international route additions out of Boston, MA today,” said Jon Kistler, Director-Boston Hub Operations, making his first official press statement after being hired by the Board of Directors just yesterday.

“Birmingham in the UK, Dublin, Ireland as well as Frankfurt, Germany will begin seeing service with Boeing 767-300ER as of December 1st, 2009.”, added James Neill, Director of Public Relations & Creative Design for Pacific West Airways.

Details of the new service out of Boston are still being worked out at this time and additional details will be released once the official timetable has been established for these flights.

New International BOS Service
Boston to Birmingham, UK
Operated by Boeing 767-300ER

Boston to Dublin, Ireland
Operated by Boeing 767-300ER

Boston to Frankfurt, Germany
Operated by Boeing 767-300ER

In addition to the new service out of Boston, Pacific West Airways also announced the introduction of new International Service out of its Miami, FL Hub Operations Center.

“With the help and input of our dedicated Pilots & Staff, we are thrilled to announce that both Madrid, Spain and Lisbon, Portugal have been added to our ever growing list of “International Hot Spots” out of Miami.”, added Michael Daughtry, Director – Miami Hub Operations.

“As with most of our South American destinations, a large travelling population from Spain and Portugal has been observed and it was only suitable to offer these European travelers the non-stop service they deserve.”

New International MIA Service
Miami to Madrid, Spain
Operated by Boeing 767-300ER

Miami to Lisbon, Portugal
Operated by Boeing 767-300ER

As with the Boston service, the Miami route additions are also still being finalized and additional details as to the timetable will be made available prior to service start on December 1st, 2009.

With four main Hubs (San Francisco, Boston, Miami & Honolulu) and three focus cities within the Pacific West network, (Denver, Phoenix and Seattle), Pacific West Airways, along with its solely owned subsidiary, Paradise Airways, now services 77 destinations in North America and the Pacific rim.

Pacific West Airways currently operates a fleet of Bombardier Q-400’s, Boeing 717-200’s, Boeing 737-900ER’s, Boeing 767-300ER’s and Boeing 777-200LR’s.

James Neill
Pacific West Airways
Director – Public Relations & Creative Design
james.neill@newpacificwestairways.com

“We have searched a great deal to find the perfect person for the job and we are more then thrilled to be able to add Jon to our team.”, says Jay McFerdy, President of Flight Operations & Human Resources. “Jon has been a true workhorse and we know he will provide us with great expertise and steadfast support, especially when it comes to our VATSIM operations”, added Shane Ishii, President of Fleet Operations & Development.

“While we consider VATSIM to be a big part of our ever growing operation, we will never consider us an Online-Only Community. Far too many Pilots enjoy offline flying and we will most certainly cater to those needs as much as we do to our online Pilots.”, said Steven Richards, Director – San Francisco Hub Operation. “It is for this reason, that all of our Pacific West Airways sponsored events are offered both as Offline and Online flight events”.

For more information visit us at http://www.newpacificwestairways.com

James Neill
Pacific West Airways
Director – Public Relations & Creative Design
james.neill@newpacificwestairways.com

“With the continued success of our Code-Share agreement with German Airways, adding additional services to the agreement was simply just a matter of time”, said Steven Richards, Director of San Francisco Hub Operations.

“We have decided to add some of the more interesting destinations within the German Airways schedule to our Code-Share agreement and in all, nine (9) new destinations have been added to the Pacific West Airways schedule. Within Germany, Bremen and Leipzig/Halle were added, for the UK, we added Birmingham and Heathrow, for Spain, the islands of Palma de Mallorca and Tenerife were added, Austria will see Innsbruck service, Amsterdam is added for the Netherlands and lastly Brussels was added for Belgium service”, added James Neill, Director of Public Relations & Creative Design.

“Not only were we able to add some of the more dramatic destinations to our agreement, we were also able to increase our fleet support for our Pilots, offering additional Airbus aircraft, ranging from the A318-100 now all the way to the A340-600 . Further, the ATR72-500, which remains German Airways’ domestic short range work horse was also added to our Code-Share hangar, giving our Pilots and even greater spectrum of aircraft to choose from”, Shane Ishii, President of Fleet Operations & Development added in closing.

Pacific West Airways is located in San Francisco, California and began operations on March 1, 2009. With three focus cities within the Pacific West network, (Denver, Phoenix, and Seattle), Pacific West Airways along with its solely owned subsidiary, Paradise Airways, currently services 77 destinations in North America and the Pacific rim.
Pacific West Airways currently operates with a fleet of Bombardier Q-400s, Boeing 717-200s, 737-700s, 737-800s, 767-300ERs, 767-400ERs and Boeing 777-200LRs

For more info visit: www.newpacificwestairways.com

“This is an arrangement that works well for both airlines and complements the growth plan of each very well,” stated Slipstream CEO Bobby Allison. “Because the production line of 717′s ceased some time ago, it has always been in our plan to replace these airframes. While the rest of our specific airframe fleet continues to grow, the 717 fleet has been left behind. Pacific West on the other hand, has a large and healthy fleet of 717′s and this will complement them very well.” Because the 717 is not being produced any more, there are limited options for procuring more, and most major 717 user airlines have to rely on acquiring modest batches from other airlines, as is the case here.

“Slipstream is also benefiting from this deal,” Allison continued. Slipstream is looking to expand its fleet of 767-300ER aircraft for long range domestic and international ops in the 250-seat market. Additional acquistions directly from Boeing have been hinted, but not publicly discussed.

Senior Vice President for Operations, Chris Comeau, added “it was never our intention to hold onto the 717′s for very long. But it is quite sad in many way to see them go. They were part of the start-up of this airline.” Mr. Comeau continued, “our plan is to replace those 717′s with 737-500 aircraft. With our current fleet of the -500 model, this is a definite plus from a maintenance standpoint. Fleet commonality is what airlines strive for in order to save on maintenance costs, and that is where we are succeeding. Efficiency is the name of the game in today’s airline market.” Slipstream officials noted that this would be their final pull of mothballed 737-500 aircraft, acquired previously from the former version of PWA. In all, 13 aircraft will be pulled, seven will be for a one-to-one exchange of the 717′s on current routes, and an additional 6 to supplement the fleet at each hub. “This is our last pull from the mothballed aircraft. The aircraft are in excellent condition, all are manufactured in 1995, unfortunately, we have no more left to pull.”

The seven Boeing 717-200 aircraft will be handed over to Pacific West Airways on June 29th and 30th. The Boeing 737-500′s have already undergone modifications some time ago, so there will be minimal work left in order to replace the 717′s on current routes. Slipstream is taking possession of the 767′s this week, and after repainting and interior re-design, the aircraft will begins operations in mid-to-late July.

Near the end of the announcement, Mr. Allison hinted that there will be more exciting announcements about the future of the airline later this week and next. So stay tuned!

The Boeing 717-200 will not leave Slipstream Airways all together. It will become part of the airline’s heritage fleet.

source: vatsim.com