Fort Lauderdale-based regional carrier Silver Airways has ceased operations.
"Please do not go to the airport. All credit card purchases should be refundable through your credit card company or your travel agency," reads a travel alert on Silver Airways' website.
The airline filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Dec. 30, continuing operations with plans to complete its restructuring by the end of March. However, by April, the trustee in the bankruptcy proceeding had requested that the case be dismissed because Silver continued to bleed money and had failed to attain the financing necessary to achieve solvency.
At the time, Silver had $90 million in assets and $400 million in debt. Silver also owed $8 million in taxes and $27.7 million to unsecured creditors.
Silver entered Chapter 11 with 16 aircraft and a network of 24 cities in Florida, the Bahamas and the Caribbean. It was the parent of the Seaborn brand, which connected St. Croix and St. Thomas via seaplane.
By April, the company had reduced its fleet to seven aircraft, court records show. This month, Silver was scheduled to fly to 16 destinations, according to Cirium data.
In a statement, Silver said it had entered into a transaction to sell assets to another airline holding company that "unfortunately has determined to not continue Silver's flight operations in Florida, the Bahamas and the Caribbean."
According to South Florida NPR affiliate WLRN, Silver recently went up for auction, but drew no bidders. As a result, the carrier was awarded by default to Connecticut-based Wexford Capital, which had loaned Silver $5.7 million for operations during its Chapter 11 process. That figure was the baseline price at the auction.