Chaos as US airline suddenly halts operations and warns people with tickets not to come to the airport
A US regional airline announced Wednesday that it was shutting down all operations, issuing an ominous warning to ticketholders to not to come to the airport.
Silver Airways, which had a hub in Fort Lauderdale, flew routes in Florida, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico and to various airports in the Caribbean.
Within Florida, Silver flew to Tampa, Tallahassee, Key West and Pensacola. In the Bahamas, customers could go to Bimini, Nassau and Freeport.
The struggling flight carrier recently announced it had declared bankruptcy.
'In an attempt to restructure in bankruptcy, Silver entered into a transaction to sell its assets to another airline holding company, who unfortunately has determined to not continue Silver's flight operations,' the company said.
The airline urged passengers with tickets or booked flights not to go to the airport.
Instead, it advised customers to get their credit card purchases refunded through the credit card company or their travel agency.
Silver filed for bankruptcy in December, which began a slow wind down of its business.
In March, it suspended all its flights from Orlando International Airport. And in early June, the airline held a bankruptcy auction that attracted no bidders.
On Wednesday, private equity firm Wexford Capital bought the airline, which marked its official end.
'It is with a heavy heart that I share the difficult news that, after months navigating through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, our journey at Silver Airways is coming to an end for most of us,' CEO Steven Rossum wrote to the company's 350 remaining employees in a letter obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
'Wexford Capital — our [debtor-in-possession] lender — has informed us they will no longer support operations or, except for a few, retain our employees,' he continued.
Wexford had provided $5.5 million in financing in April to keep Silver aloft, the Miami Herald reported.
'A small group will be asked to stay on temporarily to assist with asset management and records. Those individuals will be contacted directly. Seaborne will continue to operate as scheduled,' he concluded.
Seaborne is a small airline that has been a subsidiary of Silver since 2018.
Silver is a relatively young airline, being founded in late 2011 off the back of bankrupt Gulfstream International Airways. It upgraded at the time by purchasing six Saab 340Bplus turboprop planes. The planes had 34 seats and the exteriors were painted bright pink.
Silver's original CEO Dave Pflieger frequently called back to the nostalgic early days of air travel, when people dressed up to go on airlines like Pan Am and TWA.
'It's almost sort of nostalgic-days-of-old flying, the Elizabeth Taylor era of walking on the tarmac, getting on the airplane, looking at the window and seeing the propellers,' he told the Herald in 2012. 'Our flying hearkens back to the age-old flying.'
Silver used to fly passengers to nine Cuban cities outside Havana on 34-seat planes but ceased service to the island in 2017 because of weak demand.
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