Envoy Air Inc. is an American

regional airline A regional airline is a general classification of airline which typically operates scheduled passenger air service, using regional aircraft, between communities lacking sufficient demand or infrastructure to attract mainline flights. In North ...

headquartered in

Irving, Texas Irving is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. Located in Dallas County, it is also an inner ring suburb of Dallas. The city of Irving is part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. According to a 2019 estimate from the United States Census Bureau, ...

, in the

Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex The Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, officially designated Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, is a conurbated metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Texas encompassing 11 counties and anchore ...

. The airline is a wholly owned subsidiary of the

American Airlines Group American Airlines Group Inc. is an American publicly traded airline holding company headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. It was formed on December 9, 2013, by the merger of AMR Corporation, the parent company of American Airlines, and US Airways ...

and it is paid by fellow group member

American Airlines American Airlines is a major airlines of the United States, major US-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is the Largest airlines in the world, largest airline in the world when measured ...

to staff, operate and maintain aircraft used on

American Eagle The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche as ...

flights that are scheduled, marketed and sold by American Airlines. Envoy Air operates a fleet consisting of exclusively

Embraer Embraer S.A. () is a Brazilian multinational aerospace manufacturer that produces commercial, military, executive and agricultural aircraft, and provides aeronautical services. It was founded in 1969 in São José dos Campos, São Paulo, where i ...

regional jet aircraft. The company has a team of more than 18,000 employees, operating more than 1,000 daily flights to over 150 destinations in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

. Envoy was formerly known as American Eagle Airlines and was formed when American's parent company merged several airlines owned by the group and operating regional flights. The name was changed to avoid confusion with other regional carriers that operate on behalf of American Eagle. The name "American Eagle Airlines" was also used between April 1980 and April 1981 by an unrelated air charter service that suspended operations and filed bankruptcy before flying any scheduled operations.

History

Envoy began as a collection of regional carriers with contracts to carry the American Eagle brand name. The first American Eagle flight was operated by Metroflight Airlines, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Metro Airlines (formerly Houston Metro Airlines), on 1 November 1984, from

Fayetteville, Arkansas Fayetteville () is the second-largest city in Arkansas, the county seat of Washington County, and the biggest city in Northwest Arkansas. The city is on the outskirts of the Boston Mountains, deep within the Ozarks. Known as Washington until ...

, and

Fort Smith, Arkansas Fort Smith is the third-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 89,142. It is the principal city of the Fort Smith, Arkansas–Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Are ...

, to

Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport , also known as DFW Airport, is the primary international airport serving the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex and the North Texas Region in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the largest hub for American Air ...

. Metroflight utilized

Convair 580 The Convair CV-240 is an American airliner that Convair manufactured from 1947 to 1954, initially as a possible replacement for the ubiquitous Douglas DC-3. Featuring a more modern design with cabin pressurization, the 240 series made some inroa ...

turboprop aircraft that had been formerly operated by Frontier Airlines. Other carriers that have flown in

livery include

Executive Airlines Executive Airlines, Inc. was a Puerto Rican regional airline headquartered at Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in Carolina, Puerto Rico, the main airport for the United States territory, near the capitol of San Juan. The airline was a ...

Command Airways Command Airways was a United States regional airline based at the Dutchess County Airport in Wappinger, New York, just outside Poughkeepsie, which was operational from 1966 to 1988. History The airline was founded by Kingsley G. Morse (1931&nda ...

Air Virginia The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for ...

Simmons Airlines Simmons Airlines was a United States airline. It was the predecessor to American Eagle Airlines. Its headquarters were originally near Marquette, Michigan, at the Marquette County Airport in Negaunee Township, and were eventually moved to the ...

Chaparral Airlines Abilene Regional Airport is a public airport 3 miles (5 km) southeast of Abilene, in Taylor County, Texas. It is within the Abilene city limits and owned and operated by the city. Most operations at the airport are general aviation and m ...

and

Wings West Airlines Wings West Airlines was an American regional airline headquartered at McChesney Field (SBP), unincorporated San Luis Obispo County, California. The airline initially began scheduled passenger service as an independent commuter air carrier and t ...

. Among other aircraft in its fleet, Chaparral flew Grumman I-C turboprops which were stretched, 37 passenger regional airliner versions of Grumman's successful propjet business aircraft and was one of only a few air carriers to ever operate the type in scheduled passenger service. Until 1987 these third-party carriers flew under contract with

to provide regional feed to its hubs. During 1987 and 1988 AMR Corp. acquired its regional carriers, starting with Simmons Airlines. AMR's final airline d.b.a. American Eagle acquisition was

in 1989. By mid-1991 AMR had consolidated the number of carriers to four. The May 15, 1998, merger of Wings West and Flagship into Simmons (and the name change of Simmons Airlines to American Eagle Airlines) reduced the number of carriers flying as American Eagle under separate operating certificates to two: American Eagle Airlines and Executive Airlines. American Eagle Airlines launched its

regional jet A regional jet (RJ) is a jet-powered regional airliner with fewer than 100 seats. The first one was the Sud-Aviation Caravelle in 1959, followed by the widespread Yakovlev Yak-40, Fokker F-28, and BAe 146. The 1990s saw the emergence of ...

service in May 1998 using

Embraer ERJ 145 The Embraer ERJ family (for Embraer Regional Jet, model names EMB-135, EMB-140 and EMB-145) are regional jets designed and produced by the Brazilian aerospace company Embraer. The family includes the ERJ135 (37 passengers), ERJ140 (44 passenger ...

aircraft. AMR struck a

codesharing A codeshare agreement, also known simply as codeshare, is a business arrangement, common in the aviation industry, in which two or more airlines publish and market the same flight under their own airline designator and flight number (the "airli ...

deal with

Trans World Airlines Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major American airline which operated from 1930 until 2001. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles via St. Louis, Kansas City, and other stops, with F ...

(TWA), allowing TWA to sell American Eagle Airlines flights feeding into Los Angeles and later New York's JFK Airports. These services were branded by TWA as

Trans World Connection Trans World Connection was an affiliated brand name with Trans World Airlines ( TWA). Other regional and commuter airlines operated code sharing service for TWA as Trans World Express. The brand ended in December 2001, after American Airlines a ...

flights. These American Eagle Airlines/Trans World agreements were forged well in advance of AMR's acquisition of TWA in 2001. During 2007, AMR began studying ways to spin American Eagle Airlines off into a separate company, including, but not limited to, the possibilities of selling the company to either stockholders or to an unaffiliated third party. In 2008, AMR said any plans had been put on hold until the airline industry stabilized after the worldwide financial crisis. In July 2011, AMR announced the spin-off of American Eagle Airlines but those plans were again shelved when AMR filed for bankruptcy in November 2011. On 14 January 2014, American Airlines Group officially announced the rebranding of its American Eagle subsidiary as Envoy. Aircraft operated by American Eagle continued to operate under the current American Eagle branding, but an "Operated by Envoy Air" label was added, similar to the label used by other contract airlines that fly aircraft with American Eagle livery. This name change was created to avoid confusion when American Airlines announced that other regional carriers would operate on behalf of American. The term 'Envoy' is a reincarnation of the now deprecated Envoy Class of seating on

US Airways US Airways (formerly USAir) was a major United States airline that operated from 1937 until its merger with American Airlines in 2015. It was originally founded in History of aviation in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh as a mail delivery airline called ...

aircraft.

Corporate affairs

The headquarters is in

, in two buildings located north of the northeast portion of DFW Airport. American Eagle was previously headquartered at the

headquarters in

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...

, and had employees in several buildings: HDQ1, HDQ2, the Systems Operations Control (SOC) center, the DFW American Eagle hangar, the DFW-area warehouse CP-28, Flight Academy, and the Flagship University. It was scheduled to consolidate operations and move 600 employees; from the headquarters, SOC, and training divisions; into the Irving offices in July 2014; they were formerly occupied by

Epsilon Epsilon (, ; uppercase , lowercase or lunate ; el, έψιλον) is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a mid front unrounded vowel or . In the system of Greek numerals it also has the value five. It was der ...

Destinations

Crew bases

* Chicago, Illinois – (

O'Hare International Airport Chicago O'Hare International Airport , sometimes referred to as, Chicago O'Hare, or simply O'Hare, is the main international airport serving Chicago, Illinois, located on the city's Northwest Side, approximately northwest of the Chicago Loop, ...

) * Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas – (

) * Miami, Florida – (

Miami International Airport Miami International Airport , also known as MIA and historically as Wilcox Field, is the primary airport serving the greater Miami metropolitan area with over 1,000 daily flights to 167 domestic and international destinations, including most co ...

) There were previously bases in Boston, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York, Raleigh/Durham, and San Juan.

Fleet

As of December 2022, the Envoy Air fleet consists of the following aircraft: In September 2009, AMR Corporation announced plans to add a First Class cabin to its fleet of 25 Bombardier CRJ700 regional jets and also signed a letter of intent with Bombardier, Inc. to exercise options for the purchase of 22 additional CRJ700 aircraft for delivery beginning in the middle of 2010. In January 2014, American Eagle's pilots' union reached an agreement with the regional carrier's management that guaranteed 60 of the 90 new Embraer 175 aircraft that American Airlines ordered in December were to be operated by Eagle. The deal included options for 90 other aircraft to be operated by the regional carrier. Delivery of the aircraft would begin in the first quarter of 2015. This deal was voted down by the pilots' union, the

Air Line Pilots Association The Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA) is the largest pilot union in the world, representing more than 59,000 pilots from 35 U.S. and Canadian airlines. ALPA was founded on 27 July 1931 and is a member of the AFL-CIO and the Canadia ...

(ALPA). Envoy was awarded 40 new Embraer 175 aircraft with 90 options. Deliveries began on November 13, 2015. In October 2016, Envoy announced that they had taken delivery of two additional Embraer 175 aircraft. In May 2018, Envoy announced that they had taken delivery of fifteen additional Embraer 175 aircraft between March and November 2019 bringing the total of E175's to 69 by the end of 2019. In November 2018, Envoy announced that they had taken delivery of an additional fifteen Embraer 175 aircraft totaling 84 by mid-2020. In December 2019, Envoy transferred all of the remaining

Bombardier CRJ700 The Bombardier CRJ700, CRJ900, and CRJ1000 are a family of regional jet airliners that were designed and manufactured by Canadian transportation conglomerate Bombardier (formerly Canadair) between 1999 and 2020. Their design was derived from t ...

aircraft to

PSA Airlines PSA Airlines is an American regional airline headquartered at Dayton International Airport in Dayton, Ohio, United States. The airline is a wholly owned subsidiary of the American Airlines Group and it is paid by fellow group member American Ai ...

. In March 2020, it was announced that all twenty of the Embraer 175 aircraft operated by Compass Airlines would be transferred to Envoy upon their closure in April 2020. In February 2021, American Airlines announced that the remaining ERJ140 fleet belonging to Envoy would end service on May 5, 2021. On March 1, 2021, Envoy is welcoming an order of six Embraer 170 jets to the fleet and is expected to enter the fleet in 2021.

Historical turboprop fleet

The American Eagle brand operated a variety of twin

turboprop A turboprop is a turbine engine that drives an aircraft propeller. A turboprop consists of an intake, reduction gearbox, compressor, combustor, turbine, and a propelling nozzle. Air enters the intake and is compressed by the compressor. Fuel ...

aircraft over the years via its various regional and commuter airline partners, including the

ATR 42 The ATR 42 is a regional airliner produced by Franco-Italian manufacturer ATR, with final assembly in Toulouse, France. On 4 November 1981, the aircraft was launched with ATR, as a joint venture between French Aérospatiale (now Airbus) and ...

and

ATR 72 The ATR 72 is a twin-engine turboprop, short-haul regional airliner developed and produced in France and Italy by aircraft manufacturer ATR (french: Avions de transport régional or it, Aerei da Trasporto Regionale), a joint venture formed ...

;

Beechcraft Model 99 The Beechcraft Model 99 is a civilian aircraft produced by Beechcraft. It is also known as the Beech 99 Airliner and the Commuter 99. The 99 is a twin-engine, unpressurized, 15 to 17 passenger seat turboprop aircraft, derived from the earlier B ...

; British Aerospace Jetstream 31 and 32 models;

CASA C-212 Aviocar The CASA C-212 Aviocar is a turboprop-powered STOL medium cargo aircraft designed and built by the Spanish aircraft manufacturer Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA (CASA). It is designed for use by both civil and military operators. The C-212 w ...

;

Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner The Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner (previously the Swearingen Metro and later Fairchild Aerospace Metro) is a 19-seat, pressurized, twin-turboprop airliner first produced by Swearingen Aircraft and later by Fairchild Aircraft at a plant in San ...

;

Grumman Gulfstream I The Grumman Gulfstream I (company designation G-159) is a twin-turboprop business aircraft. It first flew on August 14, 1958. Design and development After first rejecting an idea to develop the Grumman Widgeon as an executive transport, the comp ...

(stretched G-IC model);

NAMC YS-11 The NAMC YS-11 is a turboprop airliner designed and built by the Nihon Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation (NAMC), a Japanese consortium. It was the only post-war airliner to be wholly designed and manufactured in Japan until the development of t ...

;

Short 330 The Short 330 (also SD3-30) is a small turboprop transport aircraft produced by Short Brothers. It seats up to 30 people and was relatively inexpensive and had low maintenance costs at the time of its introduction in 1976. The 330 was based on ...

and

Short 360 The Short 360 (also SD3-60; also Shorts 360)Mondey, David. ''Encyclopedia of the World's Commercial and Private Aircraft''. New York: Crescent Books, 1981. , p. 228. is a commuter aircraft that was built by UK manufacturer Short Brothers during ...

; and the

Saab 340 The Saab 340 is a Swedish twin-engine turboprop aircraft designed and initially produced by Saab AB and Fairchild Aircraft. It is designed to seat 30-36 passengers and, as of July 2018, there were 240 operational aircraft used by 34 different o ...

Incidents and accidents

* January 2006: American Eagle Flight 3008 from

San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo (; Spanish for " St. Louis the Bishop", ; Chumash: ''tiłhini'') is a city and county seat of San Luis Obispo County, in the U.S. state of California. Located on the Central Coast of California, San Luis Obispo is roughly hal ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, a Saab 340B+ operated by American Eagle Airlines, encountered icing at 11,000 feet and regained control only at 6,500 feet, after some 50 seconds' descent. During the incident, in which no one was injured, the

autopilot An autopilot is a system used to control the path of an aircraft, marine craft or spacecraft without requiring constant manual control by a human operator. Autopilots do not replace human operators. Instead, the autopilot assists the operator' ...

disconnected, the stall alarm/clacker sounded, and the plane rolled sharply left and right, experienced vibration, and pitched down. Manual deice boots were activated and ice could be heard shedding off and striking the

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

. After this incident, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued a safety recommendation which referenced other Saab 340 icing incidents, including the

American Eagle Flight 4184 American Eagle Flight 4184, officially operating as Simmons Airlines Flight 4184, was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Indianapolis, Indiana to Chicago, Illinois, United States. On , 1994, the performing this route flew into severe ...

accident. * On November 11, 2019, American Eagle Flight 4125 slid off the taxiway at Chicago O’Hare Airport after landing on runway 10L in icy conditions. The Embraer 145LR was taken out of the snow later. None of the 41 occupants were injured. * On 24 October 2020, an American Eagle ERJ-145LR (N674RJ) operating as Envoy Air Flight 4194 from

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

Freeport, Bahamas Freeport is a city, district and free trade zone on the island of Grand Bahama of the northwest Bahamas. In 1955, Wallace Groves, a Virginian financier with lumber interests in Grand Bahama, was granted of pineyard with substantial areas of sw ...

had a runway excursion upon landing. Nobody was injured in the crash. The aircraft had suffered main gear damage and the left main broke off.

References

External links

Envoy Air

American Eagle Latitudes

American Eagle page at American Airlines website
{{Navboxes , list = {{American Airlines Group {{American Eagle Carriers {{Navbox Airlines of the United States Companies based in Irving, Texas American Airlines Regional Airline Association members Oneworld affiliate members Airlines established in 1984 Regional airlines of the United States Airlines based in Texas 1984 establishments in Texas