Timetables – Big Sky

Big Sky (IATA code GQ) was launched in September 1978 with a small fleet of Cessna 402s and Handley-Page HP.137 Mk 1 Jetstreams to replace the Twin Otter service discontinued by the original Frontier Airlines which linked Billings, Montana to small towns in central and eastern Montana, northern Wyoming, and far western North Dakota. This route was pioneered by Northwest in the early 1930s and it was only fitting that Big Sky had good interline connections with NWA both at its main base of Billings as well as its eastern terminus of Bismarck.

They picked up the Bismarck – Jamestown – Minneapolis/St. Paul route when Air Wisconsin dropped it in 1981. While serving MSP, GQ was handled by Republic and advertised its good connections with RC. However, they withdrew in December 1983 (handing the route to Mesaba), preferring to build a small regional hub at Billings.

Big Sky formally became a Northwest Airlink carrier in September 1985, painting the Red Tail on new Metroliners as well as some Cessnas. In 1988-89 GQ would also pick up new BAe Jetstream 31 turboprops but these were not sustainable for the system’s traffic. The Northwest contract would run through 1990, after which Big Sky reverted to its own identity and Essential Air Service focus, but remained a WorldPerks partner through the ’90s.

Seeking growth, in late 1998 the carrier picked up the EAS routes from Exec Express II (Lone Star) and Aspen Mountain Air out of Dallas/Ft. Worth, opening up a southern division. These services would fluctuate depending on what the EAS contracts specified. EAS flying out of Seattle/Tacoma was also begun in the early 2000s.

Mesaba’s holding company, MAIR, having divested its AirTran subsidiary, acquired Big Sky in 2002.

Mesaba itself had to declare bankruptcy in October 2005 (and was sold outright to Northwest in April 2007), so MAIR needed Big Sky to grow. In December 2006 it made an arrangement for GQ to fly its 1900Ds out of Boston on behalf of Delta. However, this service only lasted until January 2008, and on March 8, 2008 GQ flew its last services into Billings.

As there are few online resources for Big Sky, we hope to present as much much material as possible. They did publish a few issues in their Airlink phase and we are trying to find all of those – please contact us if you have copies you can scan and share! No independent schedules were published for the Boston operation as far as we can see – again if anyone has those materials we would be glad to display them here.

2000s

1990s

1980s

1970s

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