ERJ 170 in CLE Incident
A Shuttle America Embraer (ERJ) 170 slid off a Cleveland runway on Sunday in windy and icy conditions. None of the 70 passengers and four crew was injured in the heavy snow accident. The Delta Connection flight was inbound from Atlanta. It left the end of Runway 28 and crashed through a fence and eliminating a localizer antenna array for the runway and coming to a halt about 100 feet beyond the runway.

FAA Investigation at MEM
The FAA is looking into an incident involving Pinnacle Airlines (PNCL) aircraft when controllers allowed them to violate minimum separation standards at Memphis. The incident started with a FedEx plane having auto-throttle problems but involved two Pinnacle aircraft and another FedEx plane. The separation violation was more than a tenth of a mile in each case. After opening an investigation into one incident the FAA picked up three breaches. The initial FedEx plane experienced an auto-throttle problem causing it to slow faster than is normal. That caused the Pinnacle regional jet to violate the five-mile separation standard between large and small aircraft. The FedEx pilot aborted the landing but ended up causing a violation of the separation standards with another FedEx jet. As they prepared to land, a second Pinnacle aircraft reduced separation to 4.86 miles.

SkyWest Celebrates in LA
SkyWest (SKYW) is celebrating its 30th year serving the Los Angeles market. The airline now has 52 employees and the airport who have worked there for more than 10 years including nine with more than 20 year’s service at the airport. The celebration included more than 400 employes at the February 23 event.
SkyWest began operations in February 1977 with 19-seat propeller-driven Fairchild Metroliners under the Sun Aire banner. Today, SkyWest operates a combination of 30-passenger Embraer 120 Brasilia aircraft, and 50- and 66-passenger Bombardier (BBD) jet (CRJ200 and CRJ700) aircraft, with more daily Los Angeles departures than any airline serving LAX. Operations at LAX doubled overnight when the airline signed on as a United Express carrier on Oct. 1, 1997. Daily departures went from 68 Delta Connection flights to a combined 188 departures. SkyWest is celebrating its 35-year anniversary this year.

Horizon Upgrades Bellingham Service
As it celebrates its 20th year in Bellingham, Wash., Horizon is upgrading its service and increasing seats in the Bellingham-Seattle market by 50 percent. The new service will be launched March 18, when the airline replaces four of its Q200 flights with 74- to 76-seat Bombardier (BBD) Q400s. On April 22, it will replace the remaining four of its Q200 flights with three Q400s. It began service in the market in 1987 with Fairchild Metroliners. Passengers have grown from 15,000 in the first year to more than 1.13 million.
In other news, Horizon Air was appointed to continue its Pendleton Essential Air Service program. Horizon has served Pendleton since 1982 and currently provides Pendleton-to-Portland service three times per weekday and two times per day on the weekend using a combination of nonstops and one-stops via Pasco, Wash. The airline plans to maintain a similar schedule. Horizon’s EAS application exceeded the DOT’s minimum requirements for aircraft size and number of flights, and it provided the service for the lowest cost. The contract spans two years and comes at no cost to local governments.

American Begins Going after Competitors
In announcing new plans for New York, American (AMR) clearly signaled it is going after JetBlue (JBLU), Delta (DALQR) and Continental’s (CAL) hub operation at Newark in order to increase its market share. The move comes a week after it announced plans to directly compete with ExpressJet (XJT) at Raleigh/Durham. In the meantime, XJT said it had no comment on American’s move at RDU.
In addition to a $1.1 billion new terminal at JetBlue’s base at Kennedy, it is entering the New York-Las Vegas market now basically owned by JetBlue. However, its addition of one roundtrip daily to Las Vegas pales in comparison to the low-cost carrier’s six daily flights. It also announced plans for increased flights to San Francisco, which JetBlue, last month, said it was adding to its network. In addition, American Eagle will add service to Cincinnati with four daily flights and two daily flights to Louisville, Ky. American acknowledged the new service does not mean a huge number of new seats in its markets, adding, however, it was “critical” in the new markets such as Cincinnati and Louisville which it called growing corporate markets.