US regional carrier Alpine swoops on Suburban

US regional air cargo carrier Alpine Air Express has acquired Suburban Air Freight as it looks to continue its recent expansion.

The deal is Alpine’s second acquisition since it became a portfolio company of private equity firm AE Industrial Partners (AEI) – it also acquired the assets of Great Lakes Airlines in 2020.

Alpine explained that both carriers primarily operate Beech 1900 aircraft meaning operations are complementary.

Both carriers also serve the express, postal and e-commerce sectors, with UPS, USPS, FedEx and Amazon customers of Alpine while DHL is a customer of Suburban, and they are Part-135 airlines.

“Alpine operates a growing fleet of more than 50 active aircraft and owns a proprietary Supplemental Type Certificate to convert the Beechcraft 1900D aircraft from passenger to cargo configuration, providing a unique value proposition to its blue-chip customers,” the company said in a press release.

Alpine claims the Beechcraft 1900D is the largest single piloted cargo aircraft in the world, giving the airline a competitive edge on competitors. 

Suburban’s leadership team of Geoff Gallup and Jay Armstrong will remain with the Company to help transition Suburban into this next chapter and assist with the integration into Alpine.

Michael Dancy, chief executive of Alpine Air, said: “The addition of Suburban and its talented team significantly expands our Company and its market position, enabling us to better serve our new and existing customers.”

Jon Nemo, senior partner at AEI, added: “Growing e-commerce activity, faster delivery requirements and supply chain complexity has increased the demand for large scale, reliable regional air cargo service providers.

“We have invested significantly in Alpine, including this strategic addition of Suburban, to create a leading provider of critical air cargo infrastructure capable of meeting this growing demand.”