Envoy Air is a regional airline with over 100 aircraft and offering over 150 destinations within the United States. However, you won’t see aircraft with Envoy written all over it flying around. How come? Let’s Talk Aviation!
The answer to why you won’t find any planes with Envoy painted big on the fuselage and tail is because they operate under the American Eagle brand. They are the largest of the six operators working under this brand and the largest of the three which are actually part of the American Airlines Group. This means that they are part of the same company as American Airlines itself. Among the other airlines operating under the American Eagle brand is SkyWest, which also operates flights under the Delta Connection, United Express, and Alaska Airlines brands.
Envoy however is part of the American Airlines group and thus only operates under the American Eagle label. As a matter of fact, until 2014, Envoy was actually called American Eagle Airlines.
After the bankruptcy of the AMR Corporation, the former American Airlines Group, the Group decided that it would outsource some of its regional flights within the American Eagle brand. This meant that independent airlines, like SkyWest and Republic Airways, would operate as American Eagle. To create a distinction between the airline and brand, American Eagle Airlines was renamed Envoy Air.
Operations
Envoy has three hubs, the largest is at Dallas Fort Worth airport. The others are located on Chicago O’Hare and Miami International Airport. If you fly with American Airlines through one of these airports, chances are your regional flight is operated by Envoy.
Their fleet consists of a mix of Embraer planes. They operate 57 E145s and 93 E175s. Just a few weeks ago, they added their first E170 to their fleet. In February of this year, they retired the last of their E140 aircraft after having 59 in their fleet at one point. Before becoming an all-Embraer airline in 2019, they also operated Bombardiers CRJ-700 aircraft before those were transferred to sister-company PSA Airlines.
Throughout the years, the passenger numbers for Envoy remained quite stable, around 16 to 18 million passengers per year. There was a dip around 2016/17. But after these years, growth kicked back in before the pandemic hit the brakes for the company. When looking at these numbers, there is one thing to remember. The goal of Envoy air is not profitability or maximum growth. Of course, it would be nice they turned a profit and they will do everything to reduce costs, but the main function of airlines like Envoy is to feed passengers to the major hubs of American Airlines so that they can connect on an intercontinental flight.
In 2021, SimpleFlying reported that 48% of passengers who flew with American Eagle connected to a flight with American Airlines and that this percentage is growing.
Importance
This emphasizes the importance of airlines like Envoy for the American Airlines group as a whole. They don’t operate to turn a profit on their own, but rather to support the main brand, American Airlines. Without these feeder airlines, it would be harder to fill the larger widebody aircraft heading for intercontinental destinations.
However, American could just as well operate these flights within their own brand, can’t they? Yes, they can, but there is one important reason they don’t. Costs. Within these regional airlines, wages for pilots and flight attendants are simply lower for these regional airlines.
Also, in the case of independent airlines like SkyWest, Mesa Airlines, and Republic Airways, while they operate under the American Eagle brand, they can be seen as simple contractors. This means that if demand is low, the American Airlines group can relatively easily decrease capacity without having to pay costs for aircraft they don’t use. Also this setup means that the contractors will have to compete with each other, both on price and service.
All this is to say that there are many reasons why these regional airlines, like Envoy air, exist. However, because of reasons like brand recognition, the American Airlines Group will have them operate all under one name American Eagle.