Pearl Aviation
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| Founded | 1964 | ||||||
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| Hubs | Darwin International Airport | ||||||
| Secondary hubs | Brisbane, Perth, Cairns, Melbourne | ||||||
| Subsidiaries | AeroPearl, AeroRescue | ||||||
| Fleet size | 26 | ||||||
| Parent company | Paspaley Pearling | ||||||
| Headquarters | Darwin, Northern Territory | ||||||
| Website | www.pearlav.com.au | ||||||
Pearl Aviation is the most prominent of a group of aviation companies owned by Paspaley Pearling. It is an air charter company based in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. It operates specialist aviation services including air ambulance, mining site flights, offshore oil support and contract charter. Its main base is Darwin International Airport, with other bases at Brisbane International Airport. Other companies in the Pearl group conduct business jet charter and search and rescue operations, fixed-base operator services, and operations in support of Paspaley's pearling activities, from bases at Darwin Airport, Perth Airport, Mungalalu Truscott Airbase, Cairns International Airport, Essendon Airport and Brisbane Airport.
The airline was formed and started operations in 1964 as Skywest Aviation, which acquired East-West Airlines in 1984 and was itself acquired by Ansett Airlines in 1987. The company was divided into airline and non-airline operations and the non-airline operations were purchased in 1996 by Paspaley Pearling (which by that time had been operating aircraft to its pearl farms for over ten years) and renamed. One of the divisions of East-West that was purchased was an operation at Sydney Airport, conducting air ambulance flights for the Ambulance Service of New South Wales. In 2004 Pearl Aviation was awarded a ten-year contract to operate four Beechcraft Super King Airs configured as air ambulances for the Northern Territory Aerial Medical Service, after losing a similar Ambulance Service of New South Wales contract to the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia the previous year. Pearl Aviation is wholly owned by the Paspaley Pearls Group and has 120 employees (at March 2007).
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