Southeast Beach Express announced today that it plans to cancel its direct air service from Atlanta and Baton Rouge into Gulf Shores/Orange Beach due to low passenger bookings.

The seasonal air service was scheduled to begin its routes on Thursday, June 3rd, with flights on Thursday and Monday from Atlanta Peachtree- Dekalb Airport (PDK) and Baton Rouge Metro Airport (BTR) into Gulf Shores Jack Edwards Airport (JKA).

“We certainly regret having to cancel the air service into Gulf Shores. We still think it’s a terrific travel amenity for both beach-goers and Baldwin County residents looking for direct air service to Atlanta and

Baton Rouge,” says Jay Taffet, founder of Southeast Beach Express. “Unfortunately, we encountered two major hurdles we didn’t anticipate when we began our planning for the air service: A significant inventory of beach lodging unavailable for booking due to storm damage, and a national shortage of rental cars due to the pandemic. These two factors made it very difficult to induce drivers to fly, as car travel allows much more schedule flexibility and obviously built-in ground transportation at the destination.”

The flights were to be operated by Ultimate Jetcharters, and the company will begin refunding advanced seat bookings today.

“We wish we could have operated Southeast Beach Express into Gulf Shores this summer, but passenger demand and seat bookings were just not there to move forward with the air shuttle. We hope there’s opportunity for the air service next summer, and we’ll begin looking at the routes in the fall towards potentially creating a flight schedule from Atlanta and Baton Rouge next June,” says Rick Pawlak, Senior Vice President of Ultimate Air Shuttle.