Amerijet International Airlines, Inc. is an American

cargo airline Cargo airlines (or air freight carriers, and derivatives of these names) are airlines mainly dedicated to the transport of air cargo, cargo by air. Some cargo airlines are divisions or subsidiaries of larger passenger airlines. In 2018, airline ...

headquartered in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

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 territori ...

. The airline delivers air freight with its fleet of

Boeing 757 The Boeing 757 is an American narrow-body airliner designed and built by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The then-named 7N7, a twinjet successor for the 727 (a trijet), received its first orders in August 1978. The prototype completed its mai ...

s and Boeing 767s from its main hub at the

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 c ...

to 48 destinations throughout the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America. Their network spans 476 destinations throughout the world, including Europe, Asia, the Americas, Africa, and the Middle East.

History

Dassault Falcon (Mystere) 20C, Amerijet International AN0215826

The airline was established and started operations in 1974. It was founded by David Bassett (Chairman and Chief Executive) and a partner with a leased

Cessna 401 Cessna () is an American brand of general aviation aircraft owned by Textron Aviation since 2014, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. Originally, it was a brand of the Cessna Aircraft Company, an American general aviation aircraft manufacturing c ...

, operating passenger and cargo services between the US and the

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the ar ...

. In 1976, Amerijet became a freight only carrier. In late 1978, courier contracts were taken from Purolator, FedEx, UPS, DHL and

Airborne Express Airborne Express was an express delivery company and cargo airline. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, its hub was in Wilmington, Ohio. Airborne was founded as the Airborne Flower Traffic Association of California in 1946 to fly flowers f ...

in the early 1980s. In 1982, Bassett bought out his partner and created ''Amerijet International''. The main services that Amerijet offers are general cargo shipping, pharmaceutical shipping, perishable shipping, oversized load shipping, live animal transport, and charter services. Among their airfreight operation, Amerijet also provides trucking services, including expedited delivery. Throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America, Amerijet offers last mile delivery for commercial customers. Amerijet has been a target internationally of animal rights activists for their transportation of animals for experimentation purposes in later years, particularly in conjunction with the Miami-based company Primate Products. Amerijet has been coming under increasing pressure in South Florida, with monthly demonstrations in front of its

Fort Lauderdale A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

office, and some of Amerijet's upper management have even been protested at their homes. To date, two activists have been arrested in front of Amerijet's office. On Valentine's Day 2011, Amerijet ended their involvement in the primate trade with these words, "Amerijet has ceased transporting primates for any and all purposes." Amerijet operated under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from August 22 until December 31, 2001, from which it emerged after financial restructuring. Amerijet International was majority-owned by H.I.G. from 2001 to 2016. On July 26, 2016, H.I.G. Capital completed the sale of Amerijet, the Miami-based all-cargo carrier to private equity firm ZS Fund L.P. Amerijet's new CEO, Vicken L. Karjian joined the company in July 2016. Amerijet and the

International Brotherhood of Teamsters The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), also known as the Teamsters Union, is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of The Team Drivers International Union and The Teamsters National Union, the un ...

reached an agreement on September 14, 2009 on a new four-year labor contract covering flight crew employees. In July 2022,

Maersk (), also known simply as Maersk (), is a Danish shipping company, active in ocean and inland freight transportation and associated services, such as supply chain management and port operation. Maersk was the largest container shipping line a ...

announced that they had reached a CMI agreement with Amerijet to operate three of their new Boeing 767-300 Freighters. Maersk will take delivery of three 767-300Fs from Boeing and outsource their operation to Amerijet. The aircraft were originally ordered by

Longhao Airlines Air Central ( IATA: GI, ICAO: LHA) is a cargo airline,It was formerly known as China Central Longhao Airlines (China Central Longhao Airlines was formerly known as Guangdong Longhao Airlines) , established in August 2015 with registered capital of ...

, but were never delivered to them.Maersk has said the aircraft would be used for trans-pacific flights.

Destinations

Fleet

Current fleet

The Amerijet International fleet consists of the following aircraft (as of December 2022):

Former fleet

The airline operated the following aircraft:

References

External links

Official website
{{DHL Aviation American companies established in 1974 Airlines established in 1974 Cargo airlines of the United States Companies based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida Companies based in Miami Airlines based in Florida 1974 establishments in Florida