RIP: Silver Airways Ceases Operations, Effective Immediately

This shouldn’t surprise anyone, but it’s finally happening — Florida-based Silver Airways is ceasing operations as of today.

Silver Airways cancels all flights going forward

Silver Airways is ceasing operations as of Wednesday, June 11, 2025, meaning the carrier’s fleet of eight ATR turboprops will no longer operate flights that have been scheduled. The company has posted the following travel advisory on its Instagram page:

We regret to inform you that we are ceasing operations as of today, June 11, 2025. In an attempt to restructure in bankruptcy, Silver entered into a transaction to sell its assets to another airline holding company, who unfortunately has determined to not continue Silver’s flight operations in Florida, the Bahamas and the Caribbean.

Please do not go to the airport. All credit card purchases should be refunded through your credit card company or your travel agency.

For context, at the very end of 2024, Silver Airways filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, claiming that operations would continue as usual, and that the airline would emerge stronger than ever before.

However, pretty quickly it became apparent that this wouldn’t be the case. In early March 2025, we saw some of the carrier’s planes start to be repossessed, causing the airline to erratically cancel flights. Since then, the company has been looking for a buyer, though given the amount of debt the airline is in, plus the limited prospects for profitability, that process hasn’t turned out to be very successful.

Silver Airways’ finances have been a mystery for years

Most airlines are publicly traded, and therefore there’s a fair bit of transparency when it comes to the financial situation they’re in. That hasn’t been the case at Silver Airways, which was owned by venture capital firm Versa Capital Management, since it was purchased in 2016.

So while we didn’t have a sense of the company’s finances, some things weren’t adding up. For example, even years before the company filed for bankruptcy protection, the airline was facing eviction from some of its biggest airports, over unpaid bills. To state the obvious, that’s not normal for a “healthy” airline.

In bankruptcy court, we recently learned just how bad the situation got — the value of Silver Airways’ property totaled just under $90 million, while the company had roughly $400 million in debt, including owing $8 million to various taxing authorities.

It’s difficult to sell a company in that kind of a financial state, especially with limited prospects for profitability. One certainly has to wonder what exactly management was thinking, or if they just wanted to save face and avoid bankruptcy for as long as possible, even with no long term chance of success.

Bottom line

Silver Airways is ceasing operations effective immediately, as of June 11, 2025. The company entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy several months back, promising to emerge stronger than ever before. That didn’t turn out to be the case, unsurprisingly, given just how deep of a hole the airline was in, with hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, and millions owed to taxing authorities.

It’s always sad to see an airline go out of business, and for people to lose their jobs. However, unfortunately this seemed to be inevitable. I’m curious what the future holds for these turboprops, since they’re not exactly popular in the United States anymore.

What do you make of Silver Airways ceasing operations?