Ohio’s Ultimate Air Shuttle suspends ops through 1H21

Ultimate Air Shuttle (UE, Cincinnati Lunken) has announced the suspension of all scheduled flights through spring 2021 due to an ongoing lack of demand. “Unfortunately, public air travel is still very low due to many cities and states keeping travel restrictions in place. Additionally, many companies still have in place travel bans and plan to continue this into 2021… The last flight date for the Cleveland Burke Lakefront route will be Tuesday, September 22nd while the last flight date for the Atlanta Dekalb-Peachtree route will be Thursday, September 24th,” the virtual carrier said in a statement. Ultimate Air Shuttle chartered four Do328-300s from its parent, Ultimate Jetcharters (UE, Akron/Canton), for scheduled services between executive airports in Cincinnati, Atlanta, and Cleveland. It paused all services in mid-March 2020 but restarted them in August, hoping to see a resurgence in demand for business travel. However, this has not materialised. According to the ch-aviation schedules module, Ultimate Air Shuttle is the only passenger airline serving Cincinnati Lunken and Atlanta Dekalb-Peachtree on a scheduled basis. Cleveland Burkel Lakefront also sees United Airlines’ services to Chicago Midway. Ultimate Air Shuttle underlined that while scheduled flights were unviable in the current market environment, its parent was experiencing a healthy level of demand for charter flights. “The positive news developing from this challenging environment is Ultimate Jetcharters, our on-demand charter division. Our team has been busy growing and serving new business opportunities that have developed during the pandemic. The flexibility our company offers clients to experience private charter flights across the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean is second to none,” it said.