JetAmerica cancels all fights

SWANTON, Ohio - In an announcement late Friday afternoon, JetAmerica has canceled all flights out of Toledo Express Airport and suspended operations.

JetAmerica said it has decided to cancel all previous scheduled flights in and out of Toledo Express as well as to five other Midwest and Atlantic coast markets it was planning on serving.

Toledo Express has offered assistance to JetAmerica travelers. For more read this Acrobat PDF document.

It is expected that all JetAmerica customers will receive automatic refunds within seven to 14 business days, Toledo Express said. Any customer not receiving a full refund within 14 days (July 31, Aug.1 ) should call JetAmerica at (727) 451-3970.

“We are reluctantly suspending our public charter operations effective today,” said John Weikle, JetAmerica CEO. “Finalizing the slots required to support our charter program at Newark has taken longer than expected and we have decided to suspend our flights in order to refocus on different markets."

"We still strongly believe that there is an unmet need for affordable air service to secondary markets and we look forward to offering this option again in the near future," Weikle added.

The economic start-up airline, which announced Toledo Express as a hub in May, started notifying customers Friday that it will give customers refunds who purchased upcoming flights.

Weilke made the formal announcement May 27 at Toledo Express, the fledgling discount airline has had trouble getting off the ground.

The airline was to have started nonstop service from Toledo to Newark, NJ, and Melbourne, Fla., on July 13, but when that date approached, it announced it was delaying all flights until Aug. 14, citing problems securing landing and takeoff slots at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.

The airline said it refunded about $500,000 in credit card purchases by more than 6,400 customers when it delayed the start of its launch date by more than a month.

JetAmerica had planned to offer 34 flights a day from Toledo Express to Newark, N.J.; Minneapolis; and to under-served airports in Melbourne, Fla.; Lansing, Mich.; and South Bend, Ind.

A week before suspending operations, JetAmerica said on July 10 all of its initial $9 airfares were sold out through at least September due to the start-up's popularity. The $9 airfares were available to the first nine passengers to book a flight.

Clearwater, Fla.-based Sun America's JetAmerica, formerly known as Air Azul, was headed up by the founder of Skybus, another economic airline that went bankrupt in June 2008.

With the grounding of JetAmerica, only two economical, no-frills air carriers remain at Toledo Express Airport in Swanton - Allegiant Air, and DirectAir.
 

If you purchased JetAmerica flights out of Toledo Express or other hubs, contact FOX Toledo News at (419) 244-2197. We'd like to talk to you.