{"id":116395,"date":"2025-03-06T22:44:04","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T22:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/airline\/silvers-plans-appear-to-be-tarnished-cranky-flier\/"},"modified":"2025-03-06T22:44:04","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T22:44:04","slug":"silvers-plans-appear-to-be-tarnished-cranky-flier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=116395","title":{"rendered":"Silver\u2019s Plans Appear to Be Tarnished \u2013 Cranky Flier"},"content":{"rendered":"


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As Spirit sails through Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and prepares to exit, fellow Florida-based airline Silver is not quite having the same luck. After a whole lot of drama, the airlines\u2019s fleet is shrinking and it has cut back flights with no notice. Silver\u2019s outlook is\u2026 cloudy\u2026 at best.<\/p>\n

After Silver stopped flying for Amazon\u2019s Prime Air in 2023, the airline had 14 aircraft flying around Florida and the Caribbean. Eight of those were ATR-42s with another six larger ATR-72s. One of the ATR-42s left the fleet in late August, and then the airline filed for bankruptcy protection on December 30, 2024.<\/p>\n

It was supposed to be a speedy trip through bankruptcy, but there have been hiccups along the way. On January 15, the airline announced it was abruptly exiting the Anguilla market. It claimed \u201cthe government of Anguilla is asking Silver to violate US law,\u201d thanks to the demand for payment on debts that Silver says need to be settled through the court restructuring. But that was just one of the problems facing the airline.<\/p>\n

Since the beginning of the year, operational performance had begun to trend downward with more cancellations and fewer flights arriving on-time. It has fallen off a cliff entirely in recent days.<\/p>\n

Silver Operational Data<\/h4>\n
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Data via Anuvu<\/a><\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n

What happened? Lessors want their planes back. Truenoord decided that it wanted more money from Silver to keep the three airplanes it had flying with the airline. Silver balked and parked the airplanes. Two of them were ATR-42s \u2014 N408SV<\/a> and N409SV<\/a> \u2014 and they were sent to Coeur d\u2019Alene, Idaho, on March 2. An ATR-72, N705SV<\/a>, hasn\u2019t left Fort Lauderdale since February 27. Presumably Truenoord had more reliable lessees ready to take on the aircraft.<\/p>\n

But Truenoord wasn\u2019t the only problem. Silver also had not come to an agreement with Nordic Aviation Capital (NAC), so it had to send those airplanes back as well. N403SV<\/a> left the fleet in mid-January and N402SV<\/a> went to Orlando on February 27 and is done with the airline.<\/p>\n

Now down to only eight aircraft, Silver was forced to make cuts. It started by abrubtly canceling all flights to and from Orlando<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Silver\u2019s Florida operation<\/sup><\/em> via <\/i>Cirium<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

That means all flights in the Florida operation now touch either Tampa or Fort Lauderdale, when they operate. As that chart at top shows, the airline has canceled far too many of its flights and has very few actually operating on time, so even these cuts are not enough.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s happening with the rest of the fleet? It\u2019s chaos. As of March 5:<\/p>\n