Champion Air the latest victim of fuel prices

Just a week after Aloha Airlines announced it would be shutting down due to high fuel prices, Champion Air is now the latest to fall under the same axe announcing their intentions of ceasing flight operations on May 31st according to a company press release. President and CEO of Champion, Lee Steele, indicated in the release that, “This is a sad day for the entire Champion family,” and a sad end to an 11 year old airline hitting what they claimed to be the "perfect storm" of economic downturn and tight credit. The airline will fulfill any commitments to customers between now and shutdown, but the 550 employees of Champion are undoubtedly already looking for other jobs. I'm not sure what they were expecting with the fuel prices when they operated a 16 aircraft fleet of all 727s. That aircraft could hardly be considered "green" when it comes to fuel consumption.

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