Unified Air

Unified Air is the wholly-owned regional subsidiary of National Airlines. Unified operates from 3 hubs in the National Airlines system—Memphis, Baltimore, Raleigh-Durham, and maintains a crew base in Cincinnati. Unified also has a maintenance base at New Haven's Tweed Airport which was aquired when Unified bought former airline; TOPBOX.LTD in 2017.

History
Unified Air commenced passenger operations in 1993 out of the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport operating a fleet of Boeing 737-700 and DC-9 aircraft. The airline later replaced the DC-9 by adding 717 aircraft to its fleet in 1999 as the launch customer for the type.

By 2005 the airline had come out of the downturn in the industry from the wake of 9/11 and was doing rather well. With a total fleet count of 47 aircraft operaiting all across Mainland United States, Unified announced a new rewards program to help give passengers incentive to stay loyal. By June of 2006 about 89% of passengers who flew with Unified were cardhold members of the UniMiles program. With the airline profiting like never before, Unified announced their plans to expand and open a hub in Orlando and signed an order with Boeing for new 737-800 aircraft, replacing the -700 series to help handle the influx of passengers.

When Unified began to take deliveries of these new 737s, the airline was beginning to feel the effects of the 2008 crash and began looking for ways to cut costs and remain profitable. To do so, Unified cancled their remaining orders with Boeing, abandoned the newly started Orlando hub and began to cut the less profitable routes (leaving them with a handful of routes from their then only hub, CVG). On September 28th 2009, Unified CEO, Hearvy Baker announced that the airline would be filing for Ch.11 bankruptcy. Employees across the board all took hard pay cuts and many left the company due to this. The rampers got together and went on strike due to these pay cuts and forced Unified to sell all but one of their aircraft.

In January of 2010, Unified announced they would no longer carry passengers as a public company, but rather as a charter airline. This model helped Unified stay afloat. Gas prices were lower, and it meant they could use the remaining assets to the best of their ability. The airline was very sucuessful with charter operaitions, and exited bankruptcy in August of that same year.

With only one aircraft, Unified once again looked at other operation options and noticed struggling TOPBOX.LTD (HVN) and made a bid to purchuse the dieing airline. Unified purchased and aquired all assets from TOPBOX.LTD on April, 17th 2013. Once the merger was complete, Unified sold their only remining 717 to Delta Air lines and retrofitted all of the TOPBOX.LTD aircraft. Unified then placed an order for 40 CRJ-700 aircraft. Unified now had a large fleet of regional aircraft and that brought the attention of Memphis-based National Airlines by the beginning 2013. On May 14th 2013 National purchased the CVG/HVN based airline in full and Unified became National's wholy-owned subsidiary.

Under the National umbrella, Unified moved their training center down to Memphis on the grounds used for National to keep everyone together in efforts to make the airline feel more like a "family". Unified now flies under the name National Connection with interiors to match Ntional's mainline aircraft for a seamless transition for larger to smaller aircraft to aid in customer comfort.

For further information, please visit the National Airlines page.

Fleet
Unified operates a total of 137 regional jets under the "National Connection" banner.