Arrow Air

History

Arrow Air traces back to a small Batchelor-family charter operation founded in 1946, but the carrier most associated with the JW code and the 'Big A' callsign was relaunched on 26 May 1981 in Miami under George Batchelor's Batchelor Enterprises as a Miami-based charter and cargo airline flying to Latin America and the Caribbean. It is most widely remembered for the crash of Flight 1285, a chartered DC-8 carrying U.S. soldiers home from Cairo that went down near Gander, Newfoundland on 12 December 1985, killing all 256 aboard, one of the deadliest aviation disasters involving a U.S. carrier. The airline passed through multiple ownership changes and bankruptcies, was acquired by Miami rival Fine Air in 1999, and the combined business was rebranded Arrow Cargo in 2004 as it refocused on scheduled freight service to the Caribbean and Latin America.

Current Operations

Arrow Air/Arrow Cargo is no longer operating: the carrier ceased scheduled flight operations around 29-30 June 2010 and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on 1 July 2010, with its assets subsequently liquidated. No airline has since revived scheduled service under the Arrow Air name or the JW/APW codes with continuity to the original Miami-based carrier, though the Arrow Air name has occasionally resurfaced attached to small, unrelated charter or ACMI ventures.

Last verified 2026-09-02· Source: airline public disclosures, company press releases & aviation-industry reporting.

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