Charter firm to offer LV-Pennsylvania flights

Wednesday, July 9, 2003 | 11:09 a.m.

A Largo, Fla., charter airline will take over routes developed earlier this year between Allentown, Pa., and Las Vegas.

Southeast Airlines, which operates as part of Southeast Vacations on charters between the Midwest and several Florida cities, will operate two flights a week to Las Vegas beginning Saturday.

Scott Bacon, a spokesman for the airline, said Southeast is taking over routes developed by Interstate Jet, a tour company that struggled to lease planes and hire crews to fly them. Interstate Jet inaugurated twice-a-week round trips between Allentown's Lehigh Valley International Airport and McCarran International Airport in May.

When Southeast takes over the route, it will modify the days the flights will operate and the route itself. Instead of flying Thursdays and Sundays as Interstate Jet had, Southeast will operate Wednesdays and Saturdays. Flights also will originate in Allentown, but make a stop in Columbus, Ohio, before continuing to Las Vegas.

Southeast, founded in 1992, has a fleet of eight DC-9 and MD-80 twin-engine jets. Bacon said the company already operates flights from Allentown to Florida and Mississippi's Gulf Coast.

Interstate Jet, which leased planes from suburban Atlanta-based TransMeridian Airlines, owns no planes of its own and had to discontinue service because of aircraft and crew reliability problems.

Representatives of TransMeridian, which has a fleet of four twin-engine Boeing 757 jets and five three-engine Boeing 727s, would not comment Tuesday on published reports that it would initiate twice-weekly charter flights between Rockford, Ill., and Las Vegas later this year. The Rockford Register Star reported TransMeridian planned flights linking Rockford with Orlando, Fla., and Las Vegas.