Out with the old Ravn, in with the new Ravn at the Kenai Airport sometime in September. Maybe.
At this week’s Kenai City Council meeting, city attorney Scott Bloom said he’s been speaking almost daily with bankruptcy attorneys for Ravn Air Group, which filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the spring. He's also speaking with the ownership of the company that bought a significant portion of Ravn’s assets — FLOAT Shuttle, Inc.
FLOAT is a Southern California commuter flight service. It spent $8 million to buy six of the Dash-8 planes and two of the federal operating certificates that Ravn’s airlines, Corvus and PenAir, once used to fly passengers all over Alaska.
Ravn had 72 planes and 1,300 employees and served more than 100 communities before its bankruptcy and was Alaska’s largest rural air service. FLOAT says is aims to rehire as many Ravn and Pen Air employees as possible.
City administration hoped to bring a resolution to the council with a proposal for an operational plan for the new Ravn at the Kenai Airport, but the pieces haven’t quite fallen into place.
“We thought we’d be ready to go forward today but things keep changing, or my understanding of things keeps changing,” Bloom said. “They want to be in operation at the earliest flying into Kenai on Sept. 22. So if we get something done at the next meeting, that will still give us enough time to comply with their timeline, although I think that’s pretty optimistic on their part.”
The council might have a resolution to consider at its next meeting, Sept. 16.
