Peninsula Airways (PenAir)

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Peninsula Airways began in 1955, when 19-year-old Orin Seybert flew a two-seat Taylorcraft from Pilot Point, Alaska. The operation incorporated on March 1, 1965, and built its reputation hauling passengers, freight, charters and medical flights across the Alaska Peninsula, the Aleutians and other places where “take the road” was not much of a travel plan.

The carrier expanded through practical bush-airline moves: a King Salmon fixed-base operation, work for Reeve Aleutian Airways, amphibious Grumman Goose service, and the 1985 acquisition of Kodiak-based Air Transport Services’ assets. In 1991, Peninsula Airways began doing business as PenAir and joined Alaska Airlines as a code-share and Mileage Plan partner.

PenAir relocated its headquarters to Anchorage in 1998, swapping the lone-plane origin story for a regional network that eventually used Metroliners, Saab 340Bs and Saab 2000s. It briefly stretched beyond Alaska with Essential Air Service routes based from Boston, Denver and Portland—because apparently serving vast Alaska was not sufficiently ambitious.

After filing for Chapter 11 in August 2017, Peninsula Airways’ assets were acquired in 2018 by interests associated with Ravn Air Group, creating a new PenAir under a separate FAA certificate. Ravn Air Group ceased service on April 5, 2020; the PenAir certificate was voluntarily surrendered that October.

Our Peninsula Airways (PenAir) collection celebrates the tough little airline that made Alaska’s far-flung map feel a bit less impossible—one turboprop, floatplane and stubbornly weatherproof flight at a time.