National Airlines (N8)

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**National Air Cargo**, also operating as **National Airlines**, is an American airline based in Orlando, Florida. It operates on-demand cargo and passenger charter services. It added scheduled passenger service on December 16, 2015, from its hub at Orlando-Sanford International Airport, Orlando.

## History

The airline was established in 1985 and started operations in December 1986. It began with Mitsubishi MU-2 aircraft, which it developed for cargo use. In April 2005, Murray Air and its sister company, Murray Aviation, merged operations under Murray Air’s newly acquired Part 121 certificate. In December 2008, after the airline was acquired by National Air Cargo, Murray Air changed its name to National Airlines and operates under the National Air Cargo Group, Inc. umbrella.

National Airlines used to operate scheduled charter passenger flights from Oakland County International Airport to Kokomo Municipal Airport in Kokomo, Indiana, Chicago Rockford International Airport in Rockford, Illinois, Spirit of St. Louis Airport in St. Louis, Missouri, and Toronto Pearson International Airport in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (with some flights making intermediate stops at Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti, Michigan) for Chrysler Corporation employees and also sold seats on those flights to the general public. These flights were operated by Saab 340 and BAe Jetstream 31 propjet aircraft in 30-seat and 19-seat configurations, respectively. This service is no longer operational.

On the cargo side, National Airlines operated two Douglas DC-8-63CF's (N921R/N865F) and one Douglas DC-8-71F (N872CA) on scheduled and charter operations worldwide, and later replaced one of the DC-8-63CF's with a DC-8-73F (N155CA). In April 2009, the carrier began cargo flights from Ypsilanti, Michigan to Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan; the flights were extended to Kandahar International Airport in August of that year. This service was discontinued in 2010, with the last working flight for the DC-8 with National taking place in May 2012. During the summer of 2010, the airline purchased three Boeing 747-400BCF aircraft. These 747s were operated for the airline by Air Atlanta Icelandic initially, before being registered in the United States in 2011.

In May 2011, National leased a Boeing 757-200 in an all-passenger configuration and began operating the aircraft in an on-demand charter basis from Dubai. The airline added a second Boeing 757 during the spring of 2013 that was also used for charters in Dubai.

Originally based at Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti, Michigan, the company moved in 2013 to Orlando Sanford International Airport.

In September, 2015, National announced scheduled passenger service from its hub at Orlando Sanford International Airport using their two active 757s. The announced destinations include St. John's International Airport in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, Windsor International Airport in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, Vancouver International Airport in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

## Fleet

As of June 2018, the National Airlines fleet include:

### Former fleet

Over the years, National Airlines had operated the following aircraft:

National Airlines former fleet
 Boeing 747-200F
 Douglas DC-8-63F
 Douglas DC-8-73F