Http://www. kciaviation. com; Year Founded 1951. Having operated a small FBO at Morgantown Airport since 1947, Angelo C. Koukoulis moves his family to Clarksburg, West Virginia, in 1951 to open a larger aviation enterprise. Aside from aircraft services, sales, and flight training, charter and air taxi flights become an important segment of his business. Koukoulis acquires a Cessna 310 in 1959 to service local corporate airlift requirements.
In 1964, when the runway at Clarksburg Benedum Airport is temporarily closed for repairs (thereby forcing curtailment of flights by the larger planes of Lake Central Airlines), KCI provides regularly scheduled Cessna service to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Three years later in 1968 and with Lake Central Airlines failing to meet community air transport needs, Koukoulis resumes full-scale regular, but nonsched-uled, service.
Aeromech Airlines, as the company flight division has become known, joins the “Allegheny Commuter” network in November 1971, simultaneously receiving the first of six Beech 99s it will acquire over the next six years. In July 1976, KCI Enterprises is established as a holding company for the airline and FBO subsidiaries. Aeromech will offer scheduled services until its merger into Wright Airlines on October 1, 1983.
Following the demise of Aeromech, KCI operates its FBO activities, as it had before and during the years the airline was in operation. Full-scale general aviation support is provided from facilities leased from Benedum Airport, including a 22,500-sq.-ft. hangar. The concern is officially branded KCI Aviation on January 1, 1985.
Under the direction of president Charles A. “Chuck” Koukoulis, KCI Aviation in 2000 continues to fly corporate and small group charters employing a Piper PA-34 Seneca and later a Cessna 310, not unlike that Angelo Koukouis had operated in 1959. It also offers FAA-approved flight training, some of it in conjunction with nearby Salem College, now the Japanese-owned Salem International University.
KD AIR CORPORATION, INC.: RR #2, Site 225, C-11, Port Albemi, British Columbia V9Y 7L6, Canada; Phone (250) 724-4495; Http://www. kdair. com; Year Founded 1994. Ketty and Diane Banke form KD Air in 1994 to provide both scheduled local flights and charter services throughout British Columbia and down into the U. S. as far south as Oregon.
By 2000, the fleet includes 1 each Cessna 172 Skyhawk, Piper PA-31310 Navajo, and PA-31-350 Navajo Chieftain. Daily roundtrips are flown from Vancouver International Airport to Vancouver Island and Texada Island. Charters afford sight-seeing visitors the opportunity to view mountain ranges, valleys, and glaciers, while other customers are taken to bush locations for fishing or hunting.
World History
