Hooters Air of Myrtle Beach officially signed off as a Myrtle Beach carrier today with the following brief message posted on the Hooters Air website.
Hooters Air Announces Cancellation of Service in Selected Cities
Hooters Air flight service will end in the following cities on these dates:
Allentown, Ft. Lauderdale, Myrtle Beach, Newark, St. Petersburg:
April 17, 2006
Scranton, Orlando:
March 26, 2006
Customers holding reservations after these dates are currently being processed for a refund. If you have questions please contact our reservations at 1-888-359-4668.
Apparently what works well for chicken wings, does not necessarily translate well into Boeing's wings. Tight tee shirts and a rowdy environment seemed to be just the golf ticket for Myrtle Beach and Hooters, but the customer base never really materialized.
Hooters Air, which featured women in orange short-shorts and tight T-shirts on flights, is now grounded except for private charters out of Winston-Salem, N.C. Bob Brooks, chairman of the Hooters restaurant chain, and president Mark Peterson told The (Myrtle Beach) Sun News that the company will focus on charters for tour groups and sports teams. Last summer Hooters Air served 15 destinations including nonstop flights to the Bahamas. The small airline has been suspending and canceling flights since Christmas 2005.
Hooters Air was staffed with three Boeing aircraft and is just the most recent in Myrtle Beach air carriers that have been unsuccessful. In the mid 1990s an Atlanta based airline, Myrtle Beach Jet Express, also was unsuccessful in finding a steady flow of customers for the greater Myrtle Beach area.
The failure of Hooters Air has obviously created a certain level of crass humor, which is to be expected. Humorists have commented that the business failed because of "sagging sales" and perhaps it is not appropriate to continue, but I can't help throwing in that one commentator wit a very straight face mentioned the entire industry was "flat".
While such humor is to be expected, we certainly have to applaud Hooters Air for making the effort to find new and creative ways to bring customers to Myrtle Beach.
In a recent conversation with Mickey McCamish, of Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday, he stated, "I consider getting more air traffic into the Myrtle Beach area my number one objective." This is a role that Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday has tried to play for the past few decades with little success. Currently the Myrtle Beach International Airport is landlocked between Highway 17 and business 17. The two roads on each side of the airport create a situation where the runway can not be expanded. Without a larger runway, larger air planes can not land safely in our area. .Squabbles between the city of Myrtle Beach and Horry County council over where to place an airport that would be large enough to land larger airplanes has been ongoing for many years now. While a request was officially made to build the new airport in the town of Aynor, SC, just 30 minutes west of Myrtle Beach, county residents do not want the increased taxes and traffic that would come with such an expansion.
Meanwhile, Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Garden City, Surfside, and Murrells Inlet continue to boom with real estate developments as the baby boom generation starts to retire and relocate to the greater Myrtle Beach area. In the next eight years, 16.6% of the entire population of America will retire. Developers including D.R. Horton, Centex Homes, and Portrait Homes have rushed into the area purchasing large acres of land and developing communities at a rapid rate. In short order, the Myrtle Beach area will be a larger metropolitan area known for more than just Myrtle Beach golf packages, Myrtle Beach Theatres and the Myrtle Beach Pavilion.
Perhaps Hooters Air was just a novelty after all, but let's hope for the sake of a better Myrtle Beach that someone with vision, fore sight, and right motives will help Myrtle Beach find its way and create an environment that is favorable for air traffic.
Update
Hooters Air Chairman Is Sued By CIT, Aircraft Lessor
Friday April 21, 2006
Brooks is accused Of Defaulting On Loans
With the last of its regulary scheduled commercial flights arriving and departing on Monday, Hooters of America chairman Robert Brooks received papers for a $4.5 million lawsuit filed against him by CIT Leasing, the company that owned two of the three 737s being leased and used by Hooters Airlines.
The New York-based aircraft leasing company accused Brooks' Pace Airlines of defaulting on lease payments on the jets -- payments the company says Brooks privately guaranteed.
According to the Associate Press, the lawsuit claims the jets were not returned in the condition required in the leasing agreement.
With this disclosure, it appears that Mr. Brooks did not have a firm hand on Hooters. More as this story continues.
