Grant Aviation’s new plane officially took flight on Monday, March 4th to help get residents to and from the city of Anchorage.
The airline purchased two new planes, both of which are Cessna 208B EX Grand Caravans.
The company announced on Friday, March 1st that they purchased the additional planes to provide the ability to increase flights between Kenai and Anchorage.
The first plane was in service on March 4th. The second plane will arrive sometime soon.
Grant Aviation has decided to increase its operations mainly in response to Ravn Alaska deciding to leave the Kenai Municipal Airport back in October of 2023.
This announcement comes following Ravn laying off 130 employees, with 22 of the individuals who were laid off were pilots.
According to Jessica Caplan, a representative of the Ravn branch of the labor union Air Line Pilots Association, International, the company employed more than 400 people before the layoffs. She calls the layoffs “shocking and disappointing.”
According to Alaska Public Media, Caplan wrote ‘Even more surprising: management has not mentioned the layoffs in any communications with us. We are all impacted in some way when a layoff affects our fellow employees, our friends and their families, or us directly.”
Her web posts were initially public, but are now password-protected for union members.
Grant Aviation did have intentions of increasing their fleet when Ravn Alaska first left Kenai Municipal Airport.
Now those plans have come fruition.
Grant Aviation Vice President Dan Knesek said due to Ravn leaving, the airline needed to increase their flights to make-up the difference.
“Historically, we’ve always dedicated 2 aircraft to the Anchorage canine flight flight service. And with the announcement of Raven pulling out, we did an analysis of the total traffic, annual traffic and monthly traffic. Historically, on the Anchorage Kenai Line [we] determined very quickly that we would need another two aircraft to to in order to provide that same amount of capacity that has been historically needed. And we did not have the capacity in our fleet to be able to add those two aircraft right away. So we had to go out and buy 2 aircrafts in order to do that,” said Knesek.
Currently, the airline is operating flights from 4:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.
“Between those time periods, back and forth with no delays. That is adding nine round trip, 18 one way flight a day Monday through Friday and then we’re going to continue just flying the two aircraft schedule on the weekends, for now.”
Knesek says that in the summer, Grant Aviation has a bit more flexibility about adding service if its needed. He says that if it is necessary, the airline would be prepared to add more flights and potentially more aircrafts.
“I hope it shows the community Grant’s commitment to the communities, and by going out right away and making this type of acquisition just for this service. That that was the sole purpose for the acquisition. So I’m hoping that the community sees that this is our dedication to the communities,” said Knesek.