RavnAir ceases operations, town confiscates their planes
RavnAir Group recently shutdown all operations; grounding all flights and laying off all employees. The company has 72 planes that fly for Ravn and Penair (which I flew a couple of times into Redding, CA before they cut their SFO-RDD route) that serve many parts of rural Alaska. Ravn is a partner of Alaska Airlines.
In a strange twist, the government of the North Slope Borough, which makes up the northern most section of the state of Alaska, confiscated all Ravn assets in the North Slope.
This includes airplanes, hangers, and all other assets.
Alaska Airlines has flights to two destinations within the North Slope: Barrow and Prudhoe Bay. Ravn provided air service to a number of the other communities within North Slope. The 10,000 residents rely on Ravn for food, transportation and especially important during the time of COVID19, medical supplies.
Other airlines have stepped in to fill the void left by Ravn, including Grant Aviation, Yute Commuter Service, and Ryan Air (not the Ryan Air you are thinking of…). Alaska Airlines is also looking at picking up additional routes (as well as employees) and/or starting some of their seasonal flights early.
I’m not sure exactly what the Mayor hopes confiscating Ravn property will do, but my guess would be that they hope to offer the use of the planes to other companies willing to fly now abandoned routes.
