Eastern Airlines, LLC

Eastern Airlines, LLC, previously Dynamic International Airways, is a U.S. Certificated airline founded in 2010. The airline operates Boeing 767-200ERs and Boeing 767-300ERs. It began as Dynamic Airways, the company added "International" to its name to reflect its transition from a charter airline into scheduled international services. Under the Dynamic name, Dynamic was headquartered in High Point, North Carolina, offering service from New York to South America. It used to operate from Fort Lauderdale, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York to the Caribbean, Cancun, and South America.

For the original airline that operated from 1926 until ceasing operations in 1991, see Eastern Air Lines.
Eastern Airlines
IATA ICAO Callsign
2D EAL EASTERN
Founded2010
AOC #2DYA074Q[1]
Operating basesJohn F. Kennedy International Airport
Fleet size8[2]
Destinations3
HeadquartersWayne, Pennsylvania
Key peopleSteve Harfst (president and CEO)[3]
Websitegoeasternair.com

Following a successful bankruptcy restructuring in 2018, in April 2018, Dynamic International Airways obtained a license to use the Eastern intellectual property from Swift Air, and the leases of two aircraft from the 2015 Eastern Air Lines startup. Dynamic was rebranded as Eastern Airlines.

In the spring of 2019, it was announced that Eastern would move its offices to Wayne, Pennsylvania in September.[4]

History

Dynamic Airways
A Boeing 767-300ER at JFK Airport Terminal 1, in the former livery, then registered N740JM.

Dynamic Airways was established by Dynamic Aviation in 2010, its first aircraft being a second-hand McDonnell Douglas MD-88 delivered a year before operations started in 2009. This was quickly followed by the acquisition of another MD-80 a year later, just before the airline officially started operations in early October, 2010 after receiving its Air Operator's Certificate.[5]

On November 2010, the airline started to operate for Direct Air. The company's first aircraft was re-painted in Direct Air livery and leased to Direct Air.[6]

As the airline approached its second year of operations, the first Boeing 767-200 was delivered to the airline, followed by the approval for the second MD-88 to take to the skies.

Not long after the purchase of the second McDonnell Douglas aircraft, Dynamic announced a three-year partnership flying for Hoda Air Services in South Korea. The deal, which included a McDonnell Douglas MD-88 supported by a full crew, was the airline's first in Asia. The airline continued to expand when its first 767 entered service and the second was delivered, which was according to the airline available for 'ACMI wet lease, full charter and corporate shuttle programs for private and government organisations'.[7]

In March 2012, Direct Air temporarily suspended its operations and cancelled all charter flights, Direct Air subsequently filing for bankruptcy. It ceased operations completely shortly after, having been found to have racked up millions in debts. The MD-88 was returned to Dynamic as a result. The third Boeing 767 was delivered to Dynamic on March 6.[8] This 767 entered operations in early 2013.

Dynamic operated a successful wet lease ACMI for an airline operation called EZjet. The wet lease operated regular flights from New York (JFK) to Georgetown Guyana (GEO) utilizing a B767-200 aircraft tail number N767DA. This operation ceased in 2012, prompting Dynamic's move into regularly-scheduled services, starting with the resurrection of the New York to Georgetown route in June 2014, competing with Caribbean Airlines and Fly Jamaica Airways on that route, who both fly the route as a fifth-freedom service.[9]

In 2015, Dynamic has also added services from Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport (FLL), flying to both Caracas (CCS) and Rio de Janeiro–Galeão (GIG), although the latter service has since been terminated.

In 2016, Dynamic added new routes from New York (JFK) to the Caribbean and Latin America, commencing service to Caracas (filling a void left after American Airlines canceled that same route) Cancún (CUN), and Punta Cana (PUJ), and entered both the Chicago and Los Angeles markets, with service from Chicago-O'Hare (ORD) to both Punta Cana and Cancun, and from Los Angeles (LAX) to Cancun and San Juan (SJU), although the latter was later withdrawn prior to launch. By August 2016, however, all of the new routes except for the New York to Caracas route had been cancelled, as well as the Fort Lauderdale to Caracas service. Soon after those cancellations, Mexican low-cost carrier Interjet began operating some of the canceled routes to and from Cancun.

After summer 2017, Dynamic withdrew from scheduled services and re-focused as an ACMI operator.

Dynamic and its affiliated airline Swift Air went bankrupt.[3]

Eastern Airlines

Dynamic exited bankruptcy and with the rights held by Swift Air renamed itself as Eastern Airline, LLC in 2018. Company is adopting plans similar the prior Eastern Air Lines Group. The company's viability is based on its route selection, mostly secondary locations in South America and China. While under-served there may not be enough demand to be profitable. The company applied for four non-stop routes, three international, from its proposed JFK New York hub. Eastern assembled a fleet of eight Boeing 767-200/300 planes and used them to furnish charter services in North American and Europe. With the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max, Eastern proved charters for Sunwing Airlines.[3]

On September 1, 2019, the company's new Systems Operations Control center in Wayne, Pennsylvania was occupied.[3] In September 2019, Eastern joined the British Civil Aviation Authority in the largest ever peacetime repatriation of British citizens after the collapse of Thomas Cook Airlines, operating flights to bring home stranded holidaymakers currently overseas back to the UK.[10]

On January 12, 2020, Eastern Airlines completed its inaugural flight to New York from Guayaquil, Ecuador.[11] By May 2020, Eastern planned to purchase several Boeing 767 and 777s, with at least five used 777-200s.[3]

Ownership

Until 2017, Dynamic Airways was owned as follows[12]

  1. Kenneth M. Woolley (50%) - founder and chief information officer (and former CEO) of Extra Space Storage. Woolley also co-owns Swift Air, another Part 121 carrier, in association with Swift Transportation, and is the owner of KMW Leasing, an aircraft leasing firm.
  2. Paul Kraus (50%) - owner of Jet Midwest Group, an aircraft leasing firm

After a successful bankruptcy restructuring in 2017, Dynamic Airways is now fully owned by Woolley.

Fleet

Current fleet
The same aircraft as on the top in one of the Eastern (2D) liveries, now registered N703KW, also at JFK Airport, taxiing out for departure on Runway 4L.

As of July 21, 2020, the Eastern Airlines fleet includes the following aircraft:[2]

Eastern Airlines fleet
Aircraft Total Passengers Notes
Boeing 767-200ER 4 218
Boeing 767-300ER 5 244
Boeing 777-200ER 1 Unknown Stored

Former fleet

As Dynamic Airways, the airline formerly operated the following aircraft:

Eastern Airlines former fleet
Aircraft Total Introduced Retired Notes
McDonnell Douglas MD-88 2 2010 Unknown

Incidents
  • Dynamic Airways Flight 405: On October 29, 2015 a Dynamic Boeing 767-269ER registered N251MY was taxiing to a runway at Fort Lauderdale International Airport (FLL) en route to Caracas, Venezuela when other nearby aircraft notified the tower that its number one engine was on fire.[13] The airplane was immediately stopped and fire crews were dispatched to the scene. All 101 passengers and crew were safely evacuated from the aircraft. 17 passengers and 5 crew members were reported as sustaining injuries. All runways were shut down and air operations were suspended at the airport.

See also

References
  1. "Federal Aviation Administration - Airline Certificate Information - Detail View". av-info.faa.gov. Retrieved 2019-06-27.
  2. "Eastern Airlines Fleet Details and History". Planespotters.net. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  3. Perrella, Enrique (August 23, 2019). "Eastern Airlines Comes Back: New Logo, JFK Hub, Triple Sevens". Airways Magazine. Retrieved July 6, 2020.
  4. "Triad Charter Airline Service Moving Headquarters to Pennsylvania, Cutting 50 Jobs". WFMY. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
  5. "Dynamic Airways to start operations in early November". World Airline News. October 27, 2010. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  6. "Direct Air Will Use MD-88 For Lakeland Service". The Ledger. June 15, 2011. Retrieved 5 October 2013.
  7. "Dynamic Airways Boeing 767". Dynamic Airways/Facebook. June 28, 2012. Retrieved 5 October 2013.
  8. "Dynamic Airways Fleet Details and History". Plane Spotters. March 2012. Retrieved 5 October 2013.
  9. "Dynamic Airways to launch regular flights next month". Saipan Tribune. September 16, 2013. Archived from the original on 5 October 2013. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  10. https://thomascook.caa.co.uk/customers/if-you-are-currently-abroad/guidance-by-destination/spain/reus-reu/27-september/
  11. Lastoe, Stacey (January 21, 2020). "The return of the legendary US airline you've probably never heard of". CNN. Retrieved July 6, 2020.
  12. Dynamic Airways application for scheduled service, May 12, 2014
  13. "BSO: 24 hurt after plane catches fire at FLL". wsvn.com. 29 October 2015. Archived from the original on 30 October 2015. Retrieved 30 October 2015.
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