Air Wisconsin and the British Aerospace ATP
Acquisition of the ATP (Advanced Turbo Prop) was Air Wisconsin's last fleet procurement decision as an independent regional airline.
Before we can move on to talk about pure jet operations at Air Wisconsin, we need to skip ahead to just before Air Wisconsin was purchased by United Airlines in 1992 to the airline's last equipment decision as an independent regional airline.
In March 1989, Air Wisconsin ordered 14 BAe ATP aircraft with six options, becoming the North American launch customer for the Advanced Turbo Prop. The original North American launch order was held by California-based Wings West, but it was canceled when that airline was purchased by American Airlines in 1987.
As Air Wisconsin was already a valued British Aerospace customer with their acquisition and operation of the BAe-146, BAe was pleased to have the largest ATP order in the program's history with Air Wisconsin- the next largest order of ATPs was with British Airways who ordered 8.
For context, only 65 ATPs were built and Air Wisconsin would take delivery of ten ATPs 1990-1991 as the only North American operator of the ATP outside of United Feeder Service (UFS), which was owned by Trans States to operate the ATPs as United Express after Air Wisconsin was acquired by United Airlines.
The ATP was too much too late for the regional airline industry when ATRs and Dash 8s were much more reliable, more popular with pilots, and cost far less to operate than the ATP.
We'll circle back to the ATP in a future post.