Cape Air

Cape Air was co-founded in 1988 by company pilots Craig Stewart and Dan Wolf, and investor Grant Wilson. Initially, Cape Air flew between Provincetown and Boston in Massachusetts, a route that had been recently discontinued by Provincetown-Boston Airlines (PBA) after airline deregulation. Throughout the early 1990s new routes were added to destinations across Cape Cod and southeastern New England. In 1994, Cape Air and Nantucket Airlines merged and now offer hourly flights between Nantucket and Hyannis.

In 1993, Cape Air began service in Florida with flights operating from Key West International Airport to Naples Municipal Airport. Florida service expanded in 1996 with flights from Key West to both Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers. Cape Air also began a network in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean in 1998, which were mostly based out of Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

2004 marked the launch year of FAR Part 121 certification and a new hub of operations in Guam. This included a new fleet type consisting of three ATR 42 Turboprop aircraft. The startup team, led by Pacific Administrator, Captain Russell Price, launched scheduled service in July 2004 with the three ATR aircraft and two of the C402. Service was operated as Continental Connection, the regional brand of Continental Airlines, and flights flew from Guam to the Northern Mariana Islands of Saipan and Rota.

In the 2000s, Cape Air's flights in Florida between Fort Myers and Key West also began operating under the Continental Connection banner, though the Cessnas remained in the Cape Air livery. Cape Air also began flying flights for Continental Connection from Tampa International Airport to both Sarasota and Fort Myers (the latter route had been previously operated by Continental Connection carrier Gulfstream International Airlines).

In late 2007, the airline began a new round of expansion in the Northeast and Midwest. On 1 November 2007, the airline began service between Boston and Rutland, Vermont, with three daily round trips. The route is operated under contract with the U.S. government Essential Air Service (EAS) program. With the help of an intrastate minimum revenue guarantee, Cape Air expanded into Indiana on 13 November 2007, offering flights from Indianapolis to Evansville and South Bend. Passenger revenue did not grow quickly enough to make the operation economically sustainable once the revenue guarantee ended, so the last Cape Air flight in Indiana was on 31 August 2008.

Cape Air began flights between Florida Keys Marathon Airport and Fort Myers in 2008 but this service was discontinued a year later. By the end of 2009, Florida service was no longer operated as Continental Connection and flights from Fort Myers to Key West were Cape Air's only remaining Florida service. Cape Air ended all intra-Florida flights in 2013.

The airline expanded into upstate New York in early 2008, following the sudden demise of Delta Connection carrier, Big Sky Airlines. Cape Air began flying three daily round-trips on Essential Air Service routes from Boston to the Adirondack cities of Plattsburgh and Saranac Lake on February 12, 2008. The airline continued its expansion into New York when they started to fly the EAS routes out of Albany to Watertown, Ogdensburg, and Massena, and Rutland Airport. Cape Air commenced service from Rockland, Maine, and Lebanon, New Hampshire, to Boston on November 1, 2008. The company purchased four additional Cessna 402s to assist with the major growth.

Cape Air was also looking to offer services on the west coast. Cape Air submitted bids to offer service between Newport and Portland in the state of Oregon. The airline was hoping to be selected by the Newport city council to receive a financial grant to jump-start the service. Ultimately they lost out to SeaPort Airlines, which was able to start service sooner than Cape Air. However, in September 2013, the DOT selected Cape Air to provide EAS service between Billings and five communities in Eastern Montana, including, Sidney, Glendive, Glasgow, Havre and Wolf Point. Service in Montana started on December 10, 2013. The airline also expanded operations in the mid-Atlantic region. Cape Air provided scheduled flights from both the Hagerstown Regional Airport and the Lancaster Airport to the Baltimore/Washington International Airport (BWI). Service out of Baltimore ended in October 2012.

Destinations

Cape Air operates three separate, disconnected sets of flights in the Northeast, the Caribbean, and Montana.

JetBlue

Since February 2007, Cape Air and JetBlue Airways have had an interline agreement. The agreement allows Cape Air to carry JetBlue Airways passengers from Boston's Logan Airport and San Juan to Cape Air's destinations throughout the Northeast, Florida, and the Caribbean. The agreement allows customers on both airlines to purchase seats on both airlines under one reservation. Customers also get their baggage transferred, and Cape Air and JetBlue Airways are located in the same terminal in Boston, which allows for an easy connection. However, in San Juan, passengers must walk 10-20 minutes from Terminal A to Terminal D.

American Airlines

Cape Air and American Airlines (AA) announced a code-sharing agreement for the Caribbean in February 2013. The cities served by the AA codeshare are Anguilla, Nevis, Tortola, Vieques and Mayaguez. In the Midwest, Cape Air and American have had a code sharing agreement since 2010, which allows passengers from Marion, IL, Owensboro, KY, and Kirksville, MO, to connect in St. Louis, MO. This ended on July 31, 2023, and those airports now have service to Chicago, IL via Contour Airlines.

United Airlines

Cape Air has been a longtime partner with United Airlines (UA) and offers a code sharing agreement for many destinations. Passengers traveling through the Caribbean on select codeshare flights can enjoy special through-fares, advanced boarding passes and the ability to earn miles on a Cape Air flight.

Accidents and incidents

On January 30, 2001, a Cape Air Cessna 402C with one crew member and one passenger aboard impacted terrain while attempting a missed approach at Vineyard Haven Airport of Martha's Vineyard, coming from Providence, Rhode Island. The aircraft was destroyed. Both occupants survived but suffered serious injuries. The probable cause of the accident was later determined by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to be "the pilot's failure to maintain a stabilized approach with an adequate vertical and lateral track." The NTSB stated that "also causal was his failure to maintain obstacle clearance."

On July 8, 2001, a repositioning flight to Nantucket crashed upon takeoff from Boston Logan. The Cessna 402C crashed into the runway after the pilot, the sole occupant, opted to waive the wake turbulence hold time and lost control when encountering wake turbulence from a Boeing 737-300 that had taken off prior. The aircraft was destroyed and the pilot survived with minor injuries. The NTSB later determined the probable causes of the accident to be "The pilot's improper decision to waive the wake turbulence hold time, and his subsequent loss of control when wake vortex turbulence was encountered."

On June 12, 2007, Cape Air grounded its entire Cessna 402C fleet nationwide after three in-flight engine failures. The problem was blamed on premature wear on the crankshaft counterweight. All 402 services were canceled for two days while the counterweights were inspected and replaced as necessary. Normal service resumed about four days after the initial fleet grounding. The FAA stated that they were monitoring repairs, but that all action taken by Cape Air was voluntary and not ordered by the FAA.

On September 26, 2008, a repositioning flight from Martha's Vineyard crashed while en route to Boston. Shortly after takeoff from runway 33, the Cessna 402C plane went down about two and a half miles from the airport, killing the pilot, who was the sole occupant. Prior to this date, Cape Air had maintained a fatality-free record over its 18-year history. The probable cause of the crash was later determined to be a loss of aircraft control due to spatial disorientation.

On January 22, 2009, a Cape Air 402C with six passengers aboard during a night flight from Key West to Fort Myers, Florida, lost power in both engines as a result of fuel starvation due to faulty maintenance of the fuel selector. The aircraft made a successful emergency landing at Naples Municipal Airport.

On February 1, 2010, a Cape Air 402C with one crew member and six passengers aboard suffered substantial damage following a runway excursion at Watertown International Airport in Watertown, New York. The airplane suffered an undetermined malfunction of its left airspeed indicator. The pilot opted to continue the approach despite this, likely due to feeling pressured by deteriorating weather conditions, rather than identifying and correcting the airspeed indicator anomaly or cross-referencing with other instruments. No occupant injuries were reported. The final NTSB found the probable cause of the accident to be "the pilot's decision to continue the approach with a known anomaly with the left airspeed indicator," and stated as well that "contributing to the accident was an undetermined malfunction of the left airspeed indicator and the condition of the runway, resulting in decreased braking capability."