ExpressJet Coming to an Airport Near You

You probably haven’t heard of ExpressJet, but you likely know Continental Express. For the longest time, ExpressJet was the sole operator of flights for Continental Express. Now the airline has been spun off into its own company, and it’s trying to branch out into new areas. Besides corporate jets, they’re also looking to start their own independent regional airline.

Now don’t start getting bad flashbacks of Independence Air’s miserable failure. No, this airline isn’t trying to be a low fare carrier. They’re trying to connect the dots between cities that don’t have service yet but could use it. They’ll use 44 of their regional jets in this new airline, and the details will be announced on February 1. What we do know from their 4th quarter earnings release is that there will be service to “24 cities in the West, Midwest, and Southeast United States.” There will be XM radio in every seat and complimentary snacks with meals on longer flights.

I’m not sure how many routes there are that need direct flights but don’t already have it, but I look forward to seeing the announcement on Feb 1. Thanks to an eagle-eyed reader’s email, we can get a sneak peak today.

If you head on over to the airline’s job website (click Job Opportunites from ExpressJet.com), you can see the 156 current positions they’re hiring for. In that list there are quite a few “General Managers” posted. While some of the cities are places that ExpressJet flies as Continental Express already, the rest are not.

Put two and two together and we may have a list of the new cities to which they’ll fly. The following are the 19 general manager positions they have open (the ones with stars are not currently served as Continental Express). They said there will be a total of 24 cities in the network, so there must be at least 5 that already have personnel. By the way, these all fit quite nicely into the plan for West, Midwest, and Southeast service.

West

• Albuquerque
• Bakersfield
• Boise*
• Colorado Springs
• El Paso
• Fresno*
• Monterey*
• Sacramento*
• San Diego*
• Spokane*
• Tucson

Midwest

• Austin
• Kansas City
• Oklahoma City
• San Antonio
• Tulsa

Southeast

• Jacksonville
• New Orleans
• Raleigh/Durham

Now there are some interesting possible routes here that don’t currently have service. How about New Orleans – San Diego? Or maybe Austin – Sacramento?

It will be interesting to see how this works out for them. I’m looking forward to seeing the remaining cities next week.