Leisure Air was established in 1992 with its base in
Winston-Salem,
North Carolina. It flew charter flights using five leased
Airbus A320s, four
McDonnell Douglas DC-10s and two
Boeing 757s. The charter flights were operated to the southwest United States,
Mexico and the
Caribbean. Also it operated charters from
Los Angeles and
San Francisco to
Hawaii using the DC-10s,
Oakland to
Mexico and
Chicago using the A320s. Those DC-10s were also used for charter flights to
Europe during the summer of 1994, for World Cup soccer fans, including flights to Shannon and Dublin, Ireland; Amsterdam, Netherlands and Brussels, Belgium. After beginning with charter service, Leisure Air expanded to offering scheduled service to several domestic and international destinations. It operated as a discount airline, selling coast-to-coast seats for as little as $99 one way. Part of its strategy was to control costs by contracting out its reservations service and renting airport counter space from other carriers for $150 a flight. One of its gimmicks to keep costs low was to offer turkey sandwiches for every meal. The airline carried 1,000 to 1,200 passengers a day on seven to eight flights. Harold J. (Hap) Pareti started Leisure Air. He previously was one of the founders of
People Express. •
Airbus A320: New York Kennedy Airport (JFK) - St. Lucia, West Indies (UVF) - Antigua, West Indies (ANU), Boston (BOS) - Orlando (MCO), Hartford (BDL) - West Palm Beach (PBI), Hartford (BDL) - Orlando (MCO) - West Palm Beach (PBI), and Detroit (DTW) - Orlando (MCO), Detroit - Cancun, Mexico (CUN), Boston (BOS) - Ft. Myers (RSW) - Ft.Lauderdale (FLL) •
Boeing 757-200: Boston (BOS) - Las Vegas (LAS), Boston (BOS) - Los Angeles (LAX), Boston (BOS) - Orlando (MCO), and Boston (BOS) - San Francisco (SFO) •
McDonnell Douglas DC-10: Los Angeles (LAX) - Maui (OGG) - Honolulu (HNL) - (LAX), San Francisco (SFO) - Maui (OGG) - Honolulu (HNL) - (SFO), New York Kennedy Airport (JFK) - Port of Spain, Trinidad (POS) - Georgetown, Guyana (GEO), and Boston (BOS) - San Francisco (SFO), San Francisco (SFO) - London Stansted, UK (STN), San Francisco (SFO) - Newark (EWR) Also according to the OAG, none of the above flights were operated on a daily basis and in most cases were only operated once a week on the above routes.
Safety concerns When the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) found irregularities in the maintenance records of the
McDonnell Douglas DC-10s, the operating license for the DC-10s and
Boeing 757s were withdrawn. Due to this, only the
Airbus A320s continued to operate but at a much reduced scale. The safety violations were found during an inspection relating to the airline's planned move from Winston-Salem to
McLean, Virginia. Flights were suspended on November 18, 1994, after the airline was unable to demonstrate compliance with FAA safety regulations. On November 25, 1994, the FAA announced it had allowed Leisure Air to resume flying some of its planes, and said it would closely monitor the airline to assure safe operations.
Collapse The airline filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 1995. Two weeks later, it suspended operations. In February 1995, following the safety concerns and aircraft restrictions, Leisure Air finally ceased all operations. ==Fleet==