Colgan Air

Colgan was a Pinnacle subsidiary that flew turboprops and small jets for Continental, United and US Airways. It was wound down in 2012 and its operations moved to Pinnacle.

A twin-engine turboprop on approach against a cloudy sky — Illustrative photo, not an aircraft of Colgan Air.

2.2 millionpassengers, 2012
55seats per flight on average
268 milesaverage trip per passenger
52.1seat-miles per gallon

How it changed

Colgan Air carried 2.2 million passengers in 2012. Its busiest year was 2011, at 3.9 million.

Its average flight had 23 seats in 2002 and 55 in 2012, a sign of larger aircraft replacing smaller ones. The average passenger flew 214 miles per segment in 2002 and 268 in 2012, and 68% of its seat-miles were filled in 2012.

Colgan Air passengers per year, 2002 to 2012.

Who it flew for

Colgan Air flew for more than one airline, and sometimes several at once. Our estimate of the split between them, which is based on the airports it serves, is too rough to publish for a regional like this. The summary at the top names its partners from public record.

Fuel

In 2012 Colgan Air burned 16 million gallons of jet fuel, which is 52.1 seat-miles per gallon and about 0.275 kg of CO2 per passenger-mile. Over 500 miles that's roughly 138 kg per passenger. Small regional aircraft burn more fuel per seat than the mainline jets, and a short hop spends a larger share of its fuel on take-off and climb, so these figures aren't graded against the airlines on the main list. Their flying and fuel are counted in the airlines whose names are on the tickets.

For some years Colgan Air didn't file usable fuel figures with BTS. In 1 of them we priced its own flight hours at the fuel burn per hour that other airlines reported for the same aircraft types that year; in 5 we used the median seat-miles per gallon of the regionals that did report. They're marked with an asterisk in the table below. See the methodology.

Year-by-year figures

Year	Passengers (millions)	Departures (thousands)	Seats per flight	Average trip (miles)	Load factor	Seat-miles (billions)	Seat-miles per gallon
2012	2.2	60	55.2	268	68.0%	0.85	52.1
2011	3.9	122	52.6	274	64.3%	1.68	49.2
2010	2.8	104	45.9	251	61.8%	1.12	60.5
2009	2.7	109	45.0	238	59.0%	1.09	45.2
2008	2.5	120	40.8	228	55.0%	1.05	48.3
2007	1.6	112	31.1	186	46.8%	0.62	49.4*
2006	1.5	107	30.5	188	45.8%	0.60	42.5*
2005	1.0	87	29.7	198	41.7%	0.49	32.1*
2004	0.7	66	26.4	209	41.1%	0.34	42.9*
2003	0.5	57	23.0	211	39.9%	0.26	42.2*
2002	0.1	14	23.3	214	43.0%	0.06	43.7*

Regionals with shared partners

These profiles have a partner airline in common with Colgan Air in at least one data year. The partner split is estimated, and the airlines may have flown for the shared network at different times.

Nearby in fuel efficiency

Neighbours in the seat-miles per gallon table, using each airline's last data year. Fuel estimates are marked on the profiles, and these aren't same-year rankings.

Mesaba Airlines47.2 seat-miles per gallon, 2011 Compass Airlines48.4 seat-miles per gallon, 2020 Independence Air60.1 seat-miles per gallon, 2005

Airline references

Wikipedia: Colgan Air

Source: US Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), T-100 traffic and Schedule T-2 fuel filings; US EPA jet-fuel CO2 factor. Methods and allocation limits.

Back to all regional airlines or the fuel rankings.