New airline to offer Atlanta-Athens flights

An airline new to Georgia plans to launch service Sept. 29 with flights to Atlanta from Macon and Athens.

GeorgiaSkies will operate four flights a day to Macon and two flights a day to Athens, targeting travelers taking flights from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to other cities.

GeorgiaSkies is an operation of Pacific Wings LLC, which is part of Pacific Air Holdings and has operations in Hawaii and as New Mexico Airlines in New Mexico. It will fly the routes with nine-passenger Cessna 208-B Grand Caravan propeller planes, which are smaller than aircraft other airlines have recently flown on those routes.

“The way these airlines are today - only the big communities are going to be getting jet service,” said Pacific Wings chief executive Greg Kahlstorf.

Both routes are subsidized under the federal government’s Essential Air Service program.

In the Atlanta-Macon market, GeorgiaSkies operations will take the place of service by Atlantic Southeast Airlines-Delta Connection, which said the route was not economically viable and said fewer than 25 percent of seats on the flights were filled before it decided to end the flights.

In the Atlanta-Athens market, GeorgiaSkies will replace flights discontinued earlier this year by Mesa’s now defunct Air Midwest.

Among GeorgiaSkies’ competition is ground shuttle service and Lawrenceville air charter service Wings Air that plans to begin air shuttle service from Athens and Macon to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.