The US Department of Transportation (DOT) has awarded the Tupelo, Mississippi Essential Air Services (EAS) contract to Corporate Flight Management (Smyrna) after previous operator SeaPort Airlines (Portland International) prematurely terminated its contract in October citing a pilot shortage.

As it stands, CFM is slated to operate a 30x weekly return service to Nashville International using Jetstream 31/Jetstream 32 aircraft over the period February 1, 2016, through to February 28, 2018. The annual subsidy given is USD4,292,405.

Other bidders included Air Choice One (St. Louis Lambert International), Boutique Air (4B, San Francisco), and Sun Air Express (Fort Lauderdale International) though ultimately CFM's decision to use a twinprop, as opposed to single-prop, aircraft was the deciding factor. The DOT's decision says that for safety reasons, several local businesses have policies wherein employees are forbidden from travelling on-board single prop aircraft.

CFM already operates scheduled flights on behalf of Fly GLO (New Orleans International) as well as Public Charters (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International) divisions Texas Sky (Victoria, TX) and North Country Sky (Manistee), however the Tupelo services will be its first own scheduled flights.