Upstart Airline Airbahn Has Plane, Needs Airport

Airbahn Inc., Southern California’s new “hometown airline,” is aiming to start passenger service in the first three months of next year and is on the waiting list to fly into and out of John Wayne Airport.

The upstart carrier, based out of Irvine and owned by local aviation and software entrepreneur Tariq Chaudhary and his family, has stated plans to fly routes in California, Nevada and Western Canada.

While the self-described “value carrier” says it’s “coming soon” on its website, the green light from the Federal Aviation Administration is still required before operations kick off, says Scott Hall, executive vice president of the airline.

“I can’t really nail it down to you other than saying some time in the first quarter of next year,” Hall told the Business Journal on Nov. 29, when asked about the start of flights.

“We’re really under the timetable of the FAA for certification.”

Airbahn late last month received its first plane, a leased Airbus A320 passenger jetliner.

A320s are primarily used for domestic flights and are seen as a competitor of the Boeing 737.

New planes cost around $100 million each at list price, and can be leased for roughly $250,000 a month or more, according to aviation trade publications.

Hall says the airline would like to start service with the number of leased aircraft in the “low single digits” and build from there.

Airbahn told federal regulators in 2018 it plans to have “single-class flexible configuration” for passengers with 174 seats on its A320 planes.

“We believe that being California’s only hometown airline, there’s a lot of opportunities in north-south traffic,” Hall said. “Virgin [America]’s gone.”  

Local Base

There are three local airports that could ultimately host Airbahn flights: Ontario International Airport, Long Beach Airport, and John Wayne.

Hall says the airline can’t apply to fly out of Long Beach until it receives FAA certification while Ontario is a problem-free possibility.

“Being based in Irvine, we’re obviously interested in Orange County, but there is only a limited number of slots,” according to Hall.

Imminent flights out of OC look unlikely. John Wayne Airport spokeswoman Anna Sophia Servin said “Airbahn is #5 on our new entrant waiting list for commercial carriers.”

“The airport did not allocate any capacity to new entrants for Plan Year 2022,” she told the Business Journal by email on Nov. 29. “Airbahn will not be one of the commercial carriers at John Wayne Airport in 2022.”

John Wayne is an increasingly popular airport. Passenger traffic there rose 184% in October compared with the pandemic-stricken same month of 2020, though still down from 2019.

Irvine Base

Airbahn was founded in February 2018 by Chaudhary, who graduated from University of California, Irvine in 1980 with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering.

The Pakistani American is also the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Airblue, which has been cited as Pakistan’s second-largest airline with a reported fleet of about 10 planes.

Airbahn’s first jet was reportedly previously used by Airblue. The two airlines’ brandings are similar in appearance.

Chaudhary is the founder of two locally-based software companies, including Zapways, which provides airline management software. That company, like Airbahn, counts headquarters at the Corporate Park office complex near the District at Tustin Legacy shopping center.

The airline was advertising for 27 open positions as of Nov. 30, top among them seven slots for captain and nine for first officers.

The jobs advertised include ground operations positions at airports in San Jose, Sacramento and Oakland, indicating those sites may also be served by Airbahn.

“We plan to operate flights in the Western United States region by providing scheduled service to mid-tier markets initially from Southern California to Northern California, Nevada and to Western Canada,” the company said in 2018, the year it was founded.

Airbahn could become the fourth startup airline to launch flights of late in the U.S., after Avelo Airlines, Breeze Airways and Aha, a new unit of ExpressJet.