SkyWest Charter (CW, St. George Municipal) – a new charter affiliate of US regional carrier SkyWest Airlines (OO, St. George Municipal) – plans to debut in October 2022 as a commuter air carrier serving 25 under-served US routes with eighteen CRJ200s.

According to its June 17 application to the US Department of Transportation (DOT), SWC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SW Charter Holdings, Inc., which in turn is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SkyWest, Inc, which is also the parent company of SkyWest Airlines and SkyWest Leasing, which will lease the jets to SWC. The aircraft will be reconfigured for 30 seats before they are delivered to SWC. The charter carrier already holds an FAA Part 135 air carrier certificate for ad-hoc flights.

SWC plans to put the first CRJ-200 into service in October 2022, with a five-month ramp-up phase during which three to four aircraft and four to five markets will be added each month until April 2023, when SWC anticipates it will be serving 25 destinations with a total of 18 aircraft. Each market will be served with twice-daily round trips to a larger city with an average flight time of 1.25 block hours. SWC anticipates that each aircraft will fly an average of six segments and eight block hours per day. It plans to schedule 17 aircraft on a daily basis with the 18th aircraft being used as an operational spare.

City pairs to be served include:

SWC says it will operate the proposed services as public charters under Part 380 of the DOT’s regulations and as code-shares or other arrangements with airline partners. The flights will be conducted as on-demand operations under FAR Part 135.

While SWC plans to provide Essential Air Service (EAS) services, it is also evaluating options for other arrangements with local communities and airports in the event it is not selected for EAS in certain markets.

It plans on maintaining the aircraft using a combination of OEM support, contact maintenance primarily from SkyWest Airlines, and an internal maintenance organization at SWC. Ground handling will be outsourced to third parties.

Initial funding for the entity will be provided through a USD75 million credit line with parent SkyWest, Inc. From this amount, SWC expects to draw down USD70 million, USD10.3 million of which will cover the pre-operating expenses and USD8 million of which will cover expected losses during the five-month ramp-up period. This will result in a cash balance of USD51.7 million at the commencement of the first normalized year (April 2023).

SWC was registered in New Jersey as USAC 691 Airways LLC. on June 14, 2022. The company was then purchased by SW Charter Holdings, Inc. and is in the process of being re-domiciled in Utah.

Comments and oppositions to SWC's application must be filed with the DOT by July 8, 2022.