Has Furloughed All Of Its Employees Until Further Notice

The FAA has informed California Pacific Airline that it will be sometime in 2014 before it can review the carrier's latest application to begin service out of Carlsbad's McClellan-Palomar Airport.

The airline wants to provide regional service to San Jose, Oakland, and Sacramento in California, as well as Las Vegas, NV, Phoenix, AZ, and later into Mexico using 72-seat Embraer regional jets. But due to this most recent delay, CEO John Selvaggio said Tuesday that all of the airline's employees had been furloughed, and that he was returning to his Florida home, according to a report from UT San Diego.

The airline had its first application rejected. Reconsideration of the application was delayed by sequestration, and was eventually denied again.

A third application was submitted in September. In a letter, Keith Ballenger, assistant division manager for the FAA’s Western Pacific region, informed Selvaggio "The recent government shutdown, along with personnel changes and other resource losses within FAA Flight Standards has unfortunately resulted in further delay of the California Pacific Airlines air carrier certification.

"The FAA will review our staffing situation in early 2014 to determine whether we can resume the California Pacific Airlines certification project. We will certainly inform you immediately if we can start certification work for CP Air any sooner."

The airline had taken delivery of an Embraer regional jet which was eventually sent back to the planemaker to save the $200,000 in monthly rent.

FMI: www.faa.gov