Southeast Airlines

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Southeast Airlines was established in 1993 as Sun Jet International and was founded by Tom Kolfenbach.^[1] It was a low fare public charter airline which operated scheduled passenger service in the United States, headquartered in Largo, Florida, flying to various vacation/leisure destinations using eight McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30 and two McDonnell Douglas MD-80 aircraft. It abruptly ceased operations on November 30, 2004.^[2] The airline was featured on the reality TV series The Simple Life, which Southeast executives hoped would give the carrier some exposure.^[3] The airline's jets featured the "Sun King" logo previously used by the original National Airlines which appeared on the tails of its aircraft.^[4]

The Southeast Airlines name was also used by another U.S. air carrier that was based in Miami (MIA) using the two letter "NS" airline code which in 1966 was operating scheduled nonstop passenger service between Miami and Key West with Fairchild F-27 turboprop aircraft.^[5] During the late 1970s, this version of Southeast was operating scheduled passenger service with Lockheed L-188 Electra turboprop aircraft between Miami and several destinations in the Turks and Caicos Islands and by 1979 was operating scheduled passenger service with a Boeing 720 jetliner nonstop between Miami and Aguadilla, Puerto Rico as well as with Fairchild F-27 turboprop aircraft nonstop between Miami and Tampa.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11][12]} This version of Southeast ceased operations during the early 1980s and also operated several Boeing 707 jetliners as well during its existence.^[13]