Ontario Express was an

airline An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in wh ...

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 ...

Code data

* IATA Code: 9X * ICAO Code: OEL *Callsign: PARTNER

History

Ontario Express first started operations on July 15, 1987 as a regional feeder airline for Canadian Airlines based at the

Toronto Pearson International Airport Lester B. Pearson International Airport , commonly known as Toronto Pearson International Airport, is an international airport located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. It is the main airport serving Toronto, its metropolitan area, and the surr ...

. This was a way to apply the newly designed commercial aviation strategy at the time: use smaller aircraft to gather passengers from various locations and "feed" the main airline which would then carry those passengers worldwide. The term "feeder airline" became a standard in all commercial aviation. The other term employed was a "spoke and wheel" type of organization, the spoke being the centre where all the feeder airlines would fly in the passengers from around the area. Operations started with 4 Jetstream 31 aircraft, manufactured by British Aerospace. ATR 42 aircraft, built by a Franco-Italian consortium Avions de transport régional, were added to the fleet in 1988. Ontario Express was the first airline to import and operate those 2 aircraft in Canada. The first cities that were connected to Toronto were: Windsor, Sault Ste. Marie, Sarnia, London, Kingston, Thunder Bay, Ottawa, and Sudbury. {{Defunct airlines of Canada Defunct airlines of Canada Airlines established in 1987 Airlines disestablished in 1993