Mobile Regional Airport - Airlines and Destinations

Airlines and Destinations

The major carriers out of Mobile are United and Delta, based on the number of daily flights serving the airport. Delta dropped several flights in 2006 and Continental (now United) took up the slack, adding flights from the airport. As of December 2006, Delta offered six weekday flights to Atlanta and one to its Cincinnati hub. The Cincinnati schedule has come and gone previously, and was again being discontinued on December 12, 2006. United offers seven weekday flights to Houston. Additional weekday departures were as follows: Charlotte (4 flights), Memphis (3 flights), and Dallas/Fort Worth (3 flights). Schedules were slightly reduced on the weekends.

United Airlines previously served MOB from its hubs in Chicago and Washington, DC, but service was canceled and the airline withdrew from Mobile in September 2001—just a few weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11th; United resumed operations at MOB following its merger with Continental with flights to and from its hub in Houston. Service to Chicago was restored in April 2007, by American Airlines, but discontinued in September 2008. United will resume service to its hub in Chicago on April 9, 2013.

The first service operated by United Airlines from the airport dates back to the early 1960's when United acquired Capital Airlines. Capital served Mobile with flights to New Orleans, Birmingham, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Philadelphia and New York Newark with Vickers Viscount four engine turboprop airliners. United continued to initially serve many of the former Capital Airlines routes with the same British-manufactured Vickers Viscount turboprops that were inherited from Capital as well as with Douglas DC-6B prop airliners. United also introduced Mobile's first ever jet service, flying a French-manufactured Sud Aviation Caravelle VI-R twin jet on daily roundtrip service to and from New York Newark via an intermediate stop in Birmingham, AL.

Eastern Airlines served Mobile from the 1930's until the demise of this air carrier in early 1991. One of the early Eastern routes was Atlanta-Montgomery-Mobile-New Orleans-Baton Rouge-Beaumont/Port Arthur (TX)-Houston flown roundtrip with a Douglas DC-3. In later years, Eastern operated Lockheed L-188 Electra turboprop service from the airport. Eastern then introduced jet service, flying Boeing 727-100, Douglas DC-9-10 and Douglas DC-9-30 jetliners primarily to Atlanta. Over the years at various times, Eastern also operated one stop, direct no change of plane jet service from Mobile to Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis and Boston.

Southern Airways also served Mobile. In the 1970's, Southern flew nonstop Douglas DC-9 jet service to Atlanta and New Orleans, and also operated direct, no change of plane DC-9 jet service to Memphis, St. Louis, Washington D.C. (Dulles Airport), New York City (LaGuardia Airport), Miami, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Milwaukee and other destinations. Southern merged with North Central Airlines to form Republic Airlines which continued to serve Mobile before this air carrier was acquired by Northwest Airlines which in turn then operated DC-9 jet service between Mobile and its hub in Memphis. Northwest was subsequently merged into Delta Airlines.

National Airlines served Mobile as well. This airline operated Boeing 727-200 jet service from the airport with nonstop flights to New Orleans and Houston as well as direct service to Jacksonville, Tampa, Miami and other destinations. At one point, National operated direct, no change of plane Boeing 727-200 service from Mobile to Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego. Before introducing Boeing 727 jet service, National operated Lockheed L-188 Electra II turboprop aircraft from the airport.

Currently, the three major airline alliances -- SkyTeam, Star Alliance, and Oneworld -- are all represented at MOB.

Mobile Regional Airport is primarily served by regional airlines doing business on behalf of the major network airlines, as listed below. Delta Airlines is the only air carrier to presently operate mainline passenger service from the airport and utilizes such jetliner types as the Airbus A319, Douglas DC-9-50 and McDonnell Douglas MD-88. All other scheduled passenger services are currently operated with either Canadair or Embraer regional jet aircraft.

The following routes are flown nonstop or direct from Mobile: