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; and formerly operated McDonnell Douglas MD-88s. Originally known as Dynamic Airways, the company added International to its official 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, and previously from also previously operated from Fort Lauderdale, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York to the Caribbean, Cancun, and South America.

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, as well as the leases of two aircraft from the 2015 Eastern Air Lines startup. Dynamic was rebranded as Eastern Airlines, using the Eastern IP.

History

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.^[2]

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.^[3]

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'.^[4]

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.^[5] 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.^[6]

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.

Ownership

Until 2017, Dynamic Airways was owned as follows^[7]

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

Dynamic Airways Boeing 767-300ER at JFK Airport Terminal 1, in the former livery. The Dynamic fleet is being repainted into hybrid Swift/Eastern livery.

As of April 2018, the Eastern Airlines fleet includes the following aircraft:^[1]

Dynamic Airways fleet

Aircraft	Total	Passengers	Remarks
Boeing 767-200	2	218	Currently stored
Boeing 767-300ER	4	244	Former Qantas aircraft

Incidents

• Dynamic Airways Flight 405: On October 29, 2015 a Dynamic Boeing 767-26ER 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.^[8] 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.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eastern Airlines, LLC.

Official website