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That photo would have been taken sometime in 1994. I flew N367AE from the paint shop in Mena, AR to St. Paul, MN on December 12, 1993. The airplane is a former American Eagle/Wings West airplane and was operated by Empire Airlines. Empire had a contract to provide crews, aircraft, and consultation to help Capitol Air get their air carrier operating certificate. We started operations December 15, 1993, initially between St. Paul Downtown (KSTP) and Chicage Midway and Milwaukee. We later added Des Moines and Omaha to the route structure, but quickly dropped those cities due to lack of traffic (I only carried one passenger during all the trips I made to those cities). Loads between STP, MDW, and MKE were not bad, but not enough to pay the bills. At the 1994 Christmas party they said we'd have ten airplanes on the ramp by Christmas 1995. A week later the paychecks bounced (though they did make good on them) and on December 31, 1994 Empire furloughed us and repossessed the airplanes.
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