Alaska Seaplanes (J5, Juneau International) has submitted a bid to acquire the Part 121 Air Operator's Certificate of PenAir (Anchorage Ted Stevens) from the bankrupt RavnAir Group, the Alaska Public Media has reported.
"Ravn is dead. And any chance at resurrecting it has passed, and any attempt to do so is a fool's errand," Alaska Seaplanes' co-owner Ken Craford said.
The bid, whose value was not disclosed, is backed by Wexford Capital, a Connecticut-based investment firm which lost an auction to acquire the then-bankrupt PenAir in 2018. The winner of that auction was the RavnAir Group, which itself filed for Chapter 11 restructuring in early April 2020.
Craford said that if PenAir does not resume operations by June, its AOC will lapse, effectively killing any prospects for the resurrection of the company in any form.
"We have a very narrow window of opportunity here to have the Ravn bankruptcy end up being a pause, rather than a full stop," he said.
In early May, RavnAir Group resolved to sell off its assets to repay debts rather than attempt to restructure and relaunch operations.
Craford said that Alaska Seaplanes would continue operating PenAir under its brand, using the same fleet of leased Saab (Sweden) turboprops. According to the ch-aviation fleets module, the carrier operated five Saab 2000s leased from Jetstream Aviation Capital before its parent's Chapter 11 filing. It also owns a single Saab 340B that has been inactive since mid-January 2019.
