Ryan International Airlines, Inc. is an American FAR 121 airline with domestic, flag, and supplemental authority.
Based in Rockford, Illinois, the US Postal Service was once the airline's main customer, flying Boeing 727 aircraft on scheduled cargo flights. Ryan currently flies non-scheduled charter passenger services for excursion and tour packagers, along with the United States Department of Defense, the United States Department of Justice, and others.
[edit] History
The airline was established in Wichita, Kansas in 1972 and started operations on March 3, 1973. It was previously known as Ryan Aviation and was repurchased by Ronald Ryan in 1989. It began flying for the United States Postal Service under subcontract to Emery Worldwide Airlines in 1989. Passenger charter services began in 1983 from Atlantic City, Minneapolis/St Paul, Cleveland and Cincinnati. In 1992 Ryan started a South Pacific operation, flying fresh fish and general freight to Guam, Saipan and surrounding islands. The airline was wholly owned by Ronald Ryan[1] until 2005, until purchased by commercial real-estate firm Rubloff Development Group. Ryan operated a number of AirTran Airways flights between Atlanta and the US west coast in 2003 and 2004, after which AirTran began operating the flights with their own Boeing 737s.[2] The company headquarters moved to Rockford in 2006.
Since moving to Rubloff's headquarters in Rockford, Ryan has held a notable number of contracts working mainly for the Department of Defense and the United States Department of Homeland Security. Until summer 2008, it maintained large operations in Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Boston for Funjet Vacations and Apple Vacations. These contracts were terminated following the failure of European carrier Futura International Airways, from which Ryan leased several aircraft to support this operation.
A Ryan International Boeing 757-200
The Ryan International Airlines fleet includes the following aircraft (as of November 18, 2009):[3]
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