SkyWest Airlines is doing the impossible by growing during a time when we are accustomed to reading about airlines going out of business. They are not just growing by a small amount either, we are talking about huge gains year over year. These gains are across the board in revenues, passengers, hours and more. The majority of their current growth comes from the acquisition of ExpressJets, which SkyWest officially acquired on November 12, 2010. They brokered a great deal for ExpressJets, resulting in paying far less than the current value of the company, thus boosting revenues. The addition of ExpressJets also allows them to operate a much higher number of flights.
ExpressJets operates aircraft under several names for a few of the major carriers. They operate the smaller regional flights for Delta, United and Continental under the names of United Express and Continental Express. The acquisition of a smaller regional carrier seems a bit risky in the current business world, but it certainly helps when you pay far less than the value of the company. This growth may position SkyWest to take advantage of any economic growth and increased airline passenger traffic, if the economy ever starts to grow again. They are certainly bucking the trend, when many other regional carriers are cutting routes or going out of business SkyWest is growing in a major way.
The success of the past year for SkyWest has definitely drawn attention to the company, making it somewhat of a model in how to succeed in tough economic times. They have added the following routes recently: Los Angeles to St. George Municipal Airport, Utah, Fresno to Seattle, Rapid City to Chicago. These are just a few of the new or additional routes they will be flying, that have been announced in the last month or so. Judging by the results of the last year they have figured out how to successfully grow, without growing so fast that you lose customers and business.
The smaller airports and cities they serve have obviously taken note of the companies solid reputation and embraced the company. The addition of ExpressJets only serves to increase exposure to the company’s name and reputation. Far too often some of these regional carriers have grown so fast that they lose sight of the fundamentals and after a short term surge in growth, they fail. It seems SkyWest is achieving a nice balance between growth and attention to detail. This will likely be a key factor in keeping the business healthy and growing into the next few years.
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