Legacy Carriers
The heavyweights of the airline industry, legacy carriers are often among the largest airlines in the world in terms of revenue, fleet size and number of employees (among others).
Unlike other types of airlines, there is no set definition for a legacy carrier, though is generally used to mean any airline with a transcontinental presence and revenues exceeding $1 billion USD.
Traditionally, legacy carriers are the largest airline and flag carriers of their home country (though not always, as in is the case in the US who refuses to have one) and dominate traffic at their country’s largest airport.
As a general rule, legacy carriers not only have a presence in neighboring countries, but on different continents too, where they compete with rival flag carriers from other countries.
Occasionally, legacy carriers are also known as network airlines, thanks to their numerous regional subsidiaries as well as their syndicates of independent feeder airliners operating under a specific name (such as American Eagle).
Sadly, the emergence of other types of airlines has begun to eat into the profits of legacy carriers, causing several of them to go out of business, the most famous being Pan Am (the US’s “unofficial” flag carrier).
Famous legacy carriers include:
- British Airways
- American Airlines
- Lufthansa
National Airlines
Regional Airlines
Low-Cost Carriers
Ultra Low-Cost Carriers
Cargo Airlines
Charter Airlines
For as long as there have been passenger airlines, demand for their flights have been cyclical. During the summer and around Christmas, there’s not enough supply to keep up with demand, but in the spring and fall, demand is incredibly low.
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long for people to capitalize on this.
They theorized that instead of storing parts (sometimes as much as half!) of their fleet during these periods, they could suspend passenger service in its entirety, quickly convert their entire fleet into freighters and convert them back to passenger aircraft as demand picked up again.
Thus, charter airlines were born.
With more stable revenues than their non-charter competitors, many charter airlines were able to offer significantly lower prices, giving millions of people the chance to fly for the first time.
As time progressed, and commercial charter airlines proved more and more popular, the concept of executive charter airlines, which offer private jet flights to wealthy fliers, began to develop.
Unlike their commercial counterparts, executive charter airlines (more commonly known as private jet charter operators) don’t use their private jets for cargo services, instead not offering it at all or having dedicated cargo aircraft for that.
Famous charter airlines include:
- TUI
- Thomas Cook (defunct)
- Atlas Air
- NetJets (private jets – fractional ownership)
Private Jet Airlines
Whilst private jets are typically though of being wealthy peoples’ alternative to flying first class, there are some airlines who operate fleets solely of private jets.
These aren’t private jet charter operators who offer ad hoc charter flights to wealthy fliers, they are regularly scheduled airlines who use private jets instead of airliners. And yes, they do employ standard private jet configurations.
Typically, these airlines operate on routes with regular demand from business fliers, such as London-New York, New York-Los Angeles and Hong Kong-London, offering a middle-of-the-market alternative to private jet charter.
Cheaper and more efficient than chartering a private jet with almost all the same benefits of chartering, the only downside to private jet airlines has been the (sort of) lack of privacy and the wait times – it’s all scheduled so you can’t just turn up and fly like with a charter!
Due partly to these factors, as well as ticket costs noticeably higher than first class tickets from more famous legacy carriers, most private jet airlines have been unsuccessful and forced to cease operations.
Perhaps the most famous private jet airline was Enterprise Airlines, which initially operated a fleet of two Cessna Citation IIs (later growing to seven) between 1988 and 1990, when it went bankrupt.
Honorable Mention: Fictional Airlines
It’s often said that art imitates life. With aviation being so crucial to our modern world – without it long distance travel would be both expensive and time consuming – it naturally creeps into our media quite often.
Books, TV shows and films regularly portray characters flying between places (often to further the plot), with the writer/producer having an agreement with a particularly real airline to feature them in that particular media for a fee. This is known as product placement.
Sometimes, however, no deal is struck and writers/producers don’t want to give an airline free publicity without receiving anything in return, so use creative license to make up their own airline.
In many cases, this gives them much more creative flexibility, especially if the flight is pivotal to the plot. They can create routes a real airline doesn’t have, use airliners an airline doesn’t use and not have to worry about getting everything 100% correct about the actual airline and flight itself.
And these are more common than you’d think. Though there are a few that are reused time and time again by unrelated franchises spanning decades, there are literally thousands from media in nearly every language.
Just watch next time you’re watching a film or reading a book and it mentions an airline. Chances are, if you’ve not heard of it, it’s been made up by the writer(s) of the show/film/book!
So whilst not an airline you could book a flight on, it is technically a type of airline (albeit fictitious) thus earning it an honorable mention in this list.
Famous fictional airlines include:
- Southjet Air
- Oceanic Airways
- Columbia Airlines
What do you think about the types of airlines? Which is your favorite? Tell me in the comments!