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Piedmont Airlines, Inc. is an American regional airline operating for US Airways Express. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of the American Airlines Group, headquartered in unincorporated Wicomico County, Maryland, near the city of Salisbury. It conducts flight operations using de Havilland Canada Dash 8 aircraft. Its main base is Wicomico Regional Airport, Salisbury, with hubs at Philadelphia International Airport and Charlotte Douglas International Airport.
History
The airline was formed in 1961 by Richard A. Henson as Henson Aviation, a fixed-base operator in Hagerstown, Maryland. It began its first scheduled flights to Washington National Airport in 1962 under the Hagerstown Commuter name, later changed to Henson Airlines. Allegheny Airlines (which became US Airways, which in turn has now merged with American Airlines) and Henson began one of the world's first code sharing arrangements in 1967. Henson re-branded itself as an Allegheny Commuter carrier using Beechcraft 99 aircraft. It initially developed a route structure serving Washington D.C., Philadelphia and Baltimore, while establishing a new headquarters for Allegheny Commuter at Salisbury, Maryland in 1968. In the 1970s, the airline upgraded to Short 330 and de Havilland Canada DHC-7 Dash 7 turboprops.
In 1983, Piedmont Aviation bought Henson and re-branded the airline as "Henson, The Piedmont Regional Airline." Under Piedmont's control, the airline expanded rapidly, particularly in Florida. Both were purchased by the USAir Group in 1987 with Piedmont absorbed two years later and Henson's aircraft repainted in USAir Express livery. The 1980s saw rapid growth by the company with the upgrade of its fleet to the de Havilland Canada Dash 8 aircraft and fleet expansion. With the growth in capacity, the airline expanded to Florida, including numerous intrastate routes in Florida, and it opened a maintenance facility in Jacksonville.
The Piedmont name was resurrected in 1993, when USAir (now US Airways) renamed Henson to "Piedmont Airlines", to protect the Piedmont brand name, which could be used by others if not exercised in trade use for a period of time. USAir continued this practice by changing the name of its two other wholly owned regional airline subsidiaries, Jetstream and Allegheny Commuter, to PSA Airlines and Allegheny Airlines, respectively. (Pacific Southwest Airlines was the name of a California-based airline merged into USAir.) In 1997, USAir was renamed US Airways, and Piedmont was likewise re-branded as a US Airways Express carrier. US Airways merged Allegheny Airlines into Piedmont in 2004.
Operations
The airline has 5,221 employees (at October 2013), and operates crew bases at Roanoke, Salisbury, New Bern, Charlottesville, and Harrisburg. As of October 2013, the airline operates 300 daily flights to 47 unique destinations.
As of December 2013, Piedmont is currently the exclusive operator out at Tweed New Haven Airport, Hilton Head Airport, and Williamsport Regional Airport, and is the only operator out of Salisbury–Ocean City–Wicomico Regional Airport.
Piedmont Airlines flights are expected to be rebranded as American Eagle in 2015, due to US Airways' merger with American Airlines in December 2013.
