The so-called successful bidder was Victory Park Capital of Chicago. So far as I can tell they have no relationship with a certain larger airline also in Chicago.

The sore loser was SAH-VUL Strategic Partners, joined by Taglich, an investment banker that currently controls Gulfstream. SAH-VUL claims their offer was better and wants the VPC decision overturned.

Searching on Victory Park Capital doesn't produce much.  They are a privately owned investment banker with no ties that I can find to the airline industry.

Gulfstream, without their expensive debt, should have produced a profit.  VPC may have in mind recapitalizing Gulfstream at a lower interest expense and leaving it as it is. FWIW, they were (and maybe still are) making money on the CLE flights according to their public statements.

I think Gulfstream's problem stemmed from hurriedly phasing out Brasilias and adding B1900's.  They timed things badly (spooked by fuel prices) and overpaid for both planes.  Even so, it almost worked.  CO initially gave them a pretty good deal on B1900's, but then when Raytheon took over the leases things changed.

There was an interesting monthly profit and loss filing for December. [For details look at  You need to be a member to view our links. under court docket 318]. Gulfstream burned through about 38% of their cash in one month.  On $5.1 million in revenues, they produced a net loss of $497K.

Their Florida flying seems to be very expensive and unprofitable.  For comparison purposes, station expenses at CLE were about $22K for 11 daily flights five days a week and fewer on Sat/Sun, but almost $50K at MIA for 6 scheduled dailies on most days plus some Cuban charters.

They owe Hopkins about $20K for back rentals and landing fees; but, as you could guess, they are paying AERO MAG on time for deicing!

Based on actual revenues and previous statements, CLE flying represents about 9-10% of their revenues, but a smaller share of their RPM's - it's almost impossible for me to calculate the RPM share from readily available numbers.  [I'm lying. Actually a fairly good guess would not be impossible, but I'm too lazy to turn their schedule into miles flown. Sign of age...]

The numbers do point out that their CLE flying is almost certainly profitable; and it makes it easy to believe the rumors that Gulfstream has asked UA to increase non-EAS CLE flying - I guess to places like DTW, FWA, TOL and some other of the nearby destinations no longer flown by CommutAir.  Unfortunately, even at zero investment cost, UA has bigger fish to fry and I doubt UA sees a big enough payoff to make them think it's worth their while.