History
The airline was founded in 1967 as Premiair Aviation by aviation enthusiast Don Kendell and partners, originally serving as an air charter provider and flying school, based in Wagga Wagga. In 1971, the name of the company was changed to Kendell Airlines, which coincided with the launch of scheduled services using Piper PA-31 Navajo aircraft between Wagga Wagga and Melbourne, a route which had previously been operated by Ansett Airlines (later called Ansett Australia). Shortly afterwards, the route network was expanded with flights to Sydney and Canberra.
Flight operations saw a further increase when de Havilland Heron and Swearingen Metro II aircraft were added to the fleet, the latter in May 1979 following the Second Oil Crisis. On 25 February 1985 the airline introduced the 34-seat Saab 340, a more modern regional airliner; Kendell was the first airline in the southern hemisphere to operate the Saab 340, with further aircraft of that type being added over the following years. The route network was nearly doubled in early 1986 when the South Australian routes of Airlines of South Australia (which was owned by Ansett) were taken over as a consequence of the deregulation of the Australian airline market. During the 1990s, Kendell established further operating bases to add to its original one at Wagga Wagga Airport, namely at Devonport Airport, Albury Airport and Sydney Airport, which was due to the airline becoming a subsidiary of Ansett.
From March 1996, Kendell Airlines offered the Capital Shuttle – a high-frequency (up to 13 daily return flights) service between Sydney and Canberra – on behalf of Ansett, which was followed by scheduled flights to Coffs Harbour and Ballina, which also had previously been operated by Ansett. The Saab 340s that were acquired by Kendell Airlines during that period were painted in Ansett colors. In 1999, Kendell became a regional affiliate of the Star Alliance, of which Ansett Australia had become a member.
Between 1999 and 2001, Kendell Airlines took delivery of 18 Bombardier CRJ100s, the first jet aircraft to be operated by the airline. On 14 September 2001, shortly after the last CRJ had joined the fleet, Ansett Australia collapsed, also grounding the fleet of Kendell Airlines. Kendell Airlines was placed into administration, but continued to operate a limited schedule, and also filled a temporary void left by Ansett Australia by flying on the Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne and Melbourne-Mount Gambier-Adelaide routes. In 2002, Kendell, and fellow Ansett subsidiary, Hazelton Airlines, were sold to a consortium known as Australiawide Airlines, from which Regional Express Airlines (known as Rex) was formed. Most of the turboprop aircraft operated by Kendell Airlines at that time were taken over by Rex.
Read more about this topic: Kendell Airlines
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)