The next month, the coronavirus pandemic decimated air travel, and the airline industry heavily contracted.Carlos Barria/Reuters
After evaluating its regional network, United selected rival regional carrier CommutAir to exclusively fly the ERJ145, crippling ExpressJet. The July 30 announcement gave employees two months' notice that the airline would be ceasing operations.ExpressJet Airlines With air travel still at reduced levels, it was clear that ExpressJet wouldn't find a home elsewhere and the airline agreed to close its doors on September 30, ending a 41-year history for the airline that can trace its earliest routes to Atlantic Southeast Airlines in 1979.Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Around 1,400 pilots and countless more flight attendants, mechanics, and other employees lost their jobs overnight. But it largely went unnoticed as the average flyer doesn't know ExpressJet as they do the airlines it flew for as regional airlines often don't have their own brand.Regional aircraft play a vital role in the hub-and-spoke route system that most airlines employ.
Major airlines brought regional carriers into the fold beginning in the 1980s with American Airlines starting the American Eagle regional brand, industry analyst Henry Harteveldt told Business Insider.Before then, regional airlines were independent operations that sold their own tickets and marketed their own flights. Flyers could get from Los Angeles to New York on American, for example, but would then have to buy another ticket on another airline to get to Binghamton or Albany.
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