Originally Posted by
Indelaware
36. Air Wisconsin, ZW. ORD-AZO-ORD. They had four on lease from BAC, after ZW gave them up they went to Florida Express.
36) Correct! Air Wisconsin was operating four weekday round trip nonstops between Chicago O'Hare and Kalamazoo at this time: three with BAe 146-200 aircraft and one with the BAC One-Eleven. Most of the ZW flights on the weekends between ORD and AZO saw DHC-7 Dash 7 turboprops substituted for the jet equipment. Air Wis was also operating nonstop BAC One-Eleven service at this time between O'Hare and Appleton (ATW) and Lincoln (LNK) with the latter flights being in direct competition with United mainline service.
I also wonder if the One-Elevens leased from the British Aircraft Corp. by Air Wisconsin were meant to be "bridge" aircraft and were progressively removed from the fleet as ZW took delivery of new BAe 146s.....
If so, I think this same type of arrangement also occurred at Pacific Express (VB), although this airline went out of business before taking its first BAe 146.....but not before adding a B737-200 to its fleet in addition to the BAC One-Elevens.