Gilley Air
15th in a Series: A Fictional Texas Boutique Airline
Gilley Airways LLC, operating as Gilley Air, is an American boutique airline headquartered on the grounds of William P. Hobby Airport (HOU) in Houston, Texas USA. In addition to Houston-HOU, the airline also operates hubs at Dallas Love Field (DAL) in Dallas, Texas USA, and Austin–Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) in Austin, Texas USA. The carrier also operates focus city routes to and from San Antonio International Airport (SAT) in San Antonio, Texas USA.
Started in May 1997 by three entrepreneurs including country musicians and actors (and former spouses) Jerry Dean Gilley and Leanne Gilley, Gilley Air specializes in flights to several Southern US cities from its operations bases in Texas. In recent years the company has since branched out to connect to both coasts and to Mexico. Notably, the airline flies to more cities in Florida (6) than in its home state of Texas (5).
History
Gilley Airways LCC was established in 1997 by husband-and-wife country music entertainers Leanne Gilley (b 1962 as Leanne McKinney in Bandera, Texas USA) and Jerry Dean Gilley (1955-2021, b in Cut and Shoot, Texas USA), in conjunction with Jean-Louis Levesque (b 1957 Saint-Boniface, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada), a pilot of Canadian Métis ancestry who previously operated the couple’s business jets for several years.
Pre-Gilley Air History
Mr and Ms Gilley rose to fame in the country music business around the same time during the early 1980s. They respectively worked their way up through the Texas bar circuit, playing night clubs and rodeos around Texas and surrounding states. Leanne Gilley began as Leanne McKinney in her hometown of Bandera, Texas before migrating to San Antonio. Meanwhile, Jerry Dean Gilley started off in the Houston area and later moved to Austin.
The two knew about each other beforehand, but they actually met for the first time in 1984 when both were scheduled to be performers at the annual New Braunfels Music Festival, where Leanne was 2nd billing to headliner Jerry Dean. They first became friends and then lovers. They married in 1986 and moved to Nashville. By 1987 both Gilleys were A-List performers in country music who shared a home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and spent much of their time either recording in their home studio or touring extensively around North America.
By 1990 the Gilleys had achieved superstar status - Leanne was slightly more popular than Jerry Dean, while Jerry Dean was considered to be more of a “pure” country artist who stuck with its traditions than Leanne, who had a brassy personality and was unafraid to mix in other genres of music such as gospel, pop, rock, zydeco and R&B. In the fall of 1990 the two began a Sunday night network TV variety show, first called The Gilleys, then renamed in 1991 as Gilley & Friends. The show became phenomenally popular and won several Emmy Awards. Both Gilleys were also sought after actors racking up both lead and supporting roles in a string of popular movies. By the late 1990s Jerry Dean and Leanne were a $100 million a year business, with the emergence of Gilleyland amusement park in Tennessee and L&J’s, a series of cafe-restaurants the couple opened in Nashville, Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, Las Vegas and Miami Beach.
Along the way the Gilleys also had 3 children: daughter Gerri-Lynn Gilley in 1987, who went on to becoming a country music star in her own right; son Ford Gilley in 1992, who joined the airline after a brief but unspectacular music career; and daughter Jenna-Lynn Gilley in 1995, the family “wild child” who has gone on to appear in numerous scandalous tabloid stories and jail blotters for many years.
Startup
In May 1997, Leanne and Jerry Dean Gilley were having dinner in Las Vegas with their pilot, Jean-Louis Levesque, having just completed a summer residency show at one of the casinos there. During dinner, the Gilleys joked with Mr Levesque about starting an airline together. Mr Levesque, who had been flying the Gilleys around the world since 1990 in the couple’s Dassault Falcon business jet, had previously worked as an jet airline pilot for First Nations Airlines, a notable Canadian Arctic airline.
Mr Levesque seriously suggested starting such an airline within the couple’s home state of Texas. Together the three drew out an improvised route map on the back of a drink coaster connecting Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin. They flew back to Nashville the next day, where they drew up a more detailed business plan to and soon leased a set of four second hand Boeing 737-300 airliners, one of which was acquired from, ironically, First Nations Airlines.
For the livery, each aircraft was repainted in shiny silver, and a wine-colored stripe was placed along the leading edge of the tail that also traced across the back part of the fuselage. The “Gilley” surname part of Jerry Dean Gilley’s autograph was replicated on the front of the fuselage, and the Gilley “G” monogram was reproduced on the tail of the aircraft, to complete the livery design.
It took more time than originally anticipated for the carrier to to set up the airline’s base hangar at Houston-HOU and to acquire the necessary gate access rights, but Gilley Air finally launched on 30 April 1999 when Jerry Dean and Leanne’s older daughter Gerri-Lynn Gilley donned a pair of safety goggles and ceremoniously broke a bottle of nonalcoholic sparkling white grape juice on the hull of one of the Gilley Air 737-300s. (Christening is usually a ceremony done for ships, not aircraft, but Mr and Ms Gilley did it in this instance to indulge their older daughter, who really wanted to do it.)
In the beginning Gilley Air flew routes connecting to the following destinations:
Austin-AUS
Dallas-DAL
El Paso-ELP
Houston-HOU
San Antonio-SAT
As more aircraft were added to the fleet during 1999, Gilley Air added new routes from HOU, AUS and DAL to New Orleans-MSY and Harlingen-HRL, as well as from Houston-HOU «» Las Vegas-LAS and Austin-AUS «» Las Vegas-LAS.
Due to the Wright Amendment, which was intended to limit use of the Dallas-DAL airfield, Gilley Air was unable to route nonstop flights from Dallas-DAL to destinations beyond Texas and the four US states bordering it. As a result, for several years Dallas-DAL became a smaller secondary hub compared to Houston-HOU, although service within Texas and the Dallas-DAL «» New Orleans-MSY route operated freely and profitably.
In 2000 Gilley Air took delivery of its first new generation Boeing 737-700s, which were used to add routes from HOU and AUS to Memphis-MEM and Nashville-BNA, followed by Chicago-MDW in early 2001. Service to Tulsa-TUL and Oklahoma City-OKC soon followed.
More new 737-700s arrived throughout the year, though interrupted for a couple of months after the September 11th terrorist attacks. The last of the Boeing 737-300s were replaced and departed the fleet during the summer of 2002.
Leanne Gilley Goes Fulltime
In 2002 Leanne Gilley decided to retire from music and acting to concentrate on operating the airline full time, thus bringing an end to the couple’s long running Gilley & Friends TV series at the end of May that year. Her final movie appearance was as in the lead role of the very successful animated film Finding Goldie.
Jean-Louis Levesque had run the airline’s day to day activities up until then. Meanwhile Jerry Dean continued to record and tour, although on a less frequent basis, with Leanne occasionally making guest appearances with him.
An early decision made by Ms Gilley and Mr Levesque was to add a higher capacity 737 to the fleet to cover busier routes, so in 2003 the airline ordered several Boeing 737-800 airliners.
Florida Expansion; Circumventing The Wright Amendment
In 2006 Gilley Air took delivery of the first of the Boeing 737-800s, which were placed on higher volume routes. This freed up several Boeing 737-700s that were in turn used to introduce nonstop air service from the HOU and AUS hubs to several new destinations in Florida:
Fort Myers-RSW
Fort Lauderdale-FLL
Orlando-MCO
Tampa-TPA
In 2006, to circumvent the Wright Amendment restrictions on Dallas-DAL, Gilley Air also started up nonstop service to certain destinations that were in turn used to create direct routes beyond the Wright Amendment’s 5 state restrictions. These destinations were:
Albuquerque-ABQ
Birmingham-BHM
Jackson-JAN
Little Rock-LIT
St Louis-STL
Santa Fe-SAF
Tulsa-TUL
This change permitted Gilley Air to offer direct air service to several cities beyond the Wright Amendment boundaries, using itineraries such as:
Dallas-DAL «» Albuquerque-ABQ «» Las Vegas-LAS
Dallas-DAL «» Santa Fe-SAF «» Denver-DEN
Dallas-DAL «» Birmingham-BHM «» Fort Lauderdale-FLL
Dallas-DAL «» Jackson-JAN «» Orlando-MCO
Dallas-DAL «» Jackson-JAN «» Atlanta-ATL
Dallas-DAL «» Tulsa-TUL «» Chicago-MDW
Dallas-DAL «» Tulsa-TUL «» Kansas City-MCI
Dallas-DAL «» Little Rock-LIT «» Nashville-BNA
Dallas-DAL «» Little Rock-LIT «» Memphis-MEM
Legal attempts to prevent Gilley Air from making such direct route expansions from Dallas-DAL ultimately failed in court. While the routes were rarely profitable, they usually broke even and allowed Gilley Air to give Dallas/Ft Worth area customers new options in air travel. This direct-service trick was kept in place until the Wright Amendment was finally repealed in 2014.
Continued Growth
In the early spring of 2007, some more 737-800s were brought in to better service flights to FLL, MCO and TPA, and the 737-700s formerly used on those routes were accordingly reassigned to connect HOU and AUS to the northern Florida Spring Break cities of Panama City-ECP and Destin/Fort Walton Beach-VPS. Although these routes were originally intended to be seasonal routes, Gilley Air decided to keep them operating year round and instead reduce frequency during off season periods.
In the fall of 2008, Gilley Air deployed 737-800s to begin its first international air service connecting Houston-HOU «» Cancún-CUN and Austin-AUS «» Cancún-CUN. Service to Puerto Vallarta-PVR was added two years later, in October 2010.
Leanne Gilley Divorces From Jerry Dean Gilley
Throughout much of the 2000s, Leanne Gilley had become increasingly frustrated with Jerry Dean Gilley’s drinking habits. Although Ms Gilley could certainly hit the bottle pretty hard herself, she never allowed it to interfere with her obligations recording or touring, or running Gilley Air. The same could not be said for Mr Gilley, however.
After Leanne retired from the acting and music business, Jerry Dean dedicated much of his efforts to recording and touring on his own. He also released a string of critically acclaimed singles and albums that garnered industry awards along the way. But when it came to touring Mr Gilley had become increasingly unreliable as a live act, as he would frequently show up too drunk to perform coherently.
Leanne began to deal with Jerry Dean’s drinking problems by hiring a bodyguard to help prevent him from getting into trouble, but the last straw was reached in December 2010 when Leanne flew out to Las Vegas to join Jerry Dean for the weekend, only to find him drunk and in bed with a young female casino blackjack dealer. All hell broke loose and Ms Gilley began throwing objects at Mr Gilley, completely trashing the luxury hotel casino suite at a reported cost of over $500,000. (It wasn’t actually that costly, but the damage was nonetheless extensive. Ms Gilley was billed for it and duly paid for repairs, and she even performed there later on in 2016.)
Leanne Gilley flew home and filed for divorce, citing adultery as the cause. Thus began a 9 year journey of litigation, allegations, scandal and plenty of supermarket tabloid fodder, much of it documenting Jerry Dean’s further descent into alcoholism.
Ms Gilley proceeded to take full control of the couple’s many and various business interests, including Gilley Air. During the 2010s Gilley Air continued to do well enough, but the barrage of legal actions siphoned away quite a bit of the carrier’s energies and profits.
Wright Amendment Expires
On 13 October 2014, the law enforcing the Wright Amendment restrictions officially expired. On the first day nonstop service was immediately added connecting Dallas-DAL «» Denver-DEN, Dallas-DAL «» Nashville-BNA, Dallas-DAL «» Chicago-MDW and Dallas-DAL «» Orlando-MCO. From that day forward Gilley Air rapidly expanded its presence in Dallas-DAL, such that Dallas-DAL soon outpaced Austin-AUS as its largest secondary hub. Over time, the expiration of the Wright Amendment proved to be very profitable for Gilley Air, although the initial costs of adding new aircraft to the fleet did cause some financial stress.
Because airlines still cannot connect Dallas-DAL to international destinations, Gilley Air instead provides a form of direct service to its destinations in Mexico by having Dallas-DAL passengers disembark at Houston-HOU to briefly pass through customs there before reboarding the same aircraft with a different flight number, with Houston passengers sometimes filling up any remaining seats. Dallas passengers had to take their carry-on luggage with them, but their checked luggage was allowed to remain stowed in the cargo hold. This particular direct-service trick irked some stakeholders in the Dallas/Ft Worth area, but again the courts refused to stop it.
While Gilley Air did keep its nonstop air service to Albuquerque-ABQ and Santa Fe-SAF after the Wright Amendment expired, by the end of 2014 service was ended to some of the other former direct-service stopover cities, including Birmingham-BHM, Jackson-JAN, Little Rock-LIT, and St Louis-STL. This decision provoked backlash with some of Leanne Gilley’s fans.
Late 2010s
Due to growth pains at Gilley Air, its finances became squeezed by mid 2015 as the airline tried to expand its presence in Dallas-DAL. To keep the company’s finances green, Leanne decided to appear in two new movies - her first movie roles in over 10 years - along with her first live tour as a recording artist in about 12 years.
One role was reprising the animated fish character Goldie in a sequel film, Where Is Goldie Now?. The other was in a live action crime drama movie, Vidor, with her starring as a righteously angry mother whose daughter had been brutally murdered, and portraying her efforts to bring the killers to justice against great odds.
Where Is Goldie Now? ended up raking in over $1 billion at the box office, outpacing the earlier film Finding Goldie. Ms Gilley had negotiated a 10% fee against the film’s gross, which netted her well over $100 million.
Meanwhile, Ms Gilley’s 2016 country music tour, Leanne Gilley and Friends, was also financially successful, earning her over $400 million including merchandising income and averaging about $9 million per show.
The movie Vidor was delayed for over a year due to various problems regarding studio distribution deals. Once released, it only earned about one-fifth as much as Where Is Goldie Now, and Ms Gilley was again paid 10% but this time against the film’s net, where she ultimately made about $15 million. However, the movie garnered a slew of movie industry accolades and much praise for Ms Gilley’s performance in the film, and she went on to win the 2018 Academy Award for Best Actress.
Ms Gilley’s earnings did a lot to fix the financial problems at Gilley Air, more than enough to keep the company from having to go public.
Meanwhile, in 2016, Ms Gilley and Mr Levesque ordered several of the new Boeing 737 MAX 7 and Boeing 737 MAX 8 airliners during the Farnborough Air Show, with an eye on having them replace the company’s older Boeing 737-700s and Boeing 737-800s.
In 2017 the airline also started leasing more 737s from JetStream Aerospace, adding new air service from Houston-HOU, Austin-AUS and Dallas-DAL to Los Angeles-LAX and New York-LGA, as well as to Houston-HOU «» Los Cabos-SJD and Austin-AUS «» Los Cabos-SJD.
By 2019 Jerry Dean Gilley had sobered up, and he and Leanne were finally able to speak with each other in a civilized manner, much to the relief of many. After almost a decade of legal disputes, Leanne and Jerry Dean Gilley finalized their divorce and ended all outstanding litigation against each other. As part of the divorce settlement, Jerry Dean Gilley was given back 49% ownership in Gilley Air, but was also required to remain a silent partner. The couple agreed to evenly split their royalties on the syndication rights to Gilley & Friends and other shared entertainment properties. They sold off Gilleyland amusement park, which was folded into a bigger entertainment conglomerate, and L&J’s cafe-restaurant chain was licensed out to be managed by other investors.
Early 2020s
During the Covid 19 Pandemic, like many airlines at the time Gilley Air was forced to close down for several months at great cost. To help keep her workers paid, Leanne Gilley recorded an album and television special featuring duets with 20 other recording artists to keep the airline funded through the pandemic.
In early 2021 Jerry Dean Gilley died from an undisclosed illness, which many believed was linked to Mr Gilley’s prior alcohol abuse.
In 2022, Gilley Air took delivery of its first Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft and began the process of pulling its older Boeing 737-800s out of service, with plans to remove all of them by 2025.
Today
Leanne Gilley still runs the airline actively as its Chairman and CEO. She is currently working to upgrade San Antonio-SAT into a full hub. She’s frustrated with still not having the Boeing 737 MAX 7 available to her despite having first ordered them 8 years ago, but she has managed to keep the company’s Boeing 737-700s in good order for now. She is reportedly thinking about operning new routes to Belize-BZE and Montego Bay-MTB, and possibly Roatan-RTB.
In early 2024, Jean-Louis Levesque retired as COO of Gilley Air, at the age of 74. He has since returned to Canada, where he now lives in the Vancouver area. Still a licensed pilot, he spends much of his time flying recreationally around the Pacific Northwest.
Mr Levesque was succeeded by Ford Gilley, now age 32, the only son of Jerry Dean and Leanne Gilley. A licensed ATP pilot who first started flying for Gilley Air in 2015 at age 23, the younger Mr Gilley was brought into the head office by his mother in 2022 to be trained personally by Mr Levesque as his replacement. He now works alongside his mother at the company’s headquarters in Houston-HOU, though he still takes flight duty on occasion, especially when taking vacation trips to Florida or Mexico.
Destinations
Gilley Air offers routes connecting to the following cities. All destinations listed are located within the United States except where otherwise noted.
Atlanta-ATL, Georgia
Austin-AUS, Texas - Hub { Map Link ]
Cancún-CUN, Mexico
Charleston-CHS, South Carolina
Chicago-MDW, Illinois
Dallas-DAL, Texas - Hub [ Map Link ]
Denver-DEN, Colorado
Destin/Fort Walton Beach-VPS, Florida
Fort Lauderdale-FLL, Florida
Fort Myers-RSW, Florida
Harlingen-HRL, Texas
Houston-HOU, Texas - HQ and Primary Hub [ Map Link ]
Kansas City-MCI, Missouri
Las Vegas-LAS, Nevada
Los Angeles-LAX, California
Los Cabos-SJD, Mexico
Memphis-MEM, Tennessee
Nashville-BNA, Tennessee
New Orleans-MSY, Louisiana
New York-LGA, New York
Oklahoma City-OKC, Oklahoma
Orlando-MCO, Florida
Panama City-ECP, Florida
Phoenix-PHX, Arizona
Puerto Vallarta-PVR, Mexico
San Antonio-SAT, Texas - Focus City [ Map Link ]
Savannah-SAV, Georgia
Tampa-TPA, Florida
Tulsa-TUL, Oklahoma
Fleet
Current Fleet
Gilley Air fleet currently operates the following aircraft.
Boeing 737 MAX 8 - 2021-Present
Boeing 737-800 - 1999-Present
Boeing 737-700 - 1999-Present
Former Fleet
Gilley Air previously operated the following aircraft.
† = JStream original aircraft
Boeing 737-300 - 1999-2002 †
Future Fleet
Gilley Air has placed firm orders for the following aircraft, expecting to receive them in the near future.
Boeing 737 MAX 7 - No Firm Date, But Expected Late 2025
=Nota Bene=
Gilley Air is not based on any real life airline.
Jerry Dean Gilley and Leanne Gilley aren’t based on any single real life individuals, although they’re somewhat inspired by a variety of real life celebrities. The movies, TV shows and other ventures are all fictitious of course.
There was once a real life country artist named Mickey Gilley who lived in Houston, and he used to co-own a nightclub named for him (it was featured in the movie Urban Cowboy), but other than the shared last name there are no further similarities.
Gilley Air uses Boeing aircraft because I figured the Gilleys would be into the Buy American concept. I couldn’t picture Leanne and Jerry Dean ever buying Airbuses or Embraers, but who knows what their son Ford Gilley might do when he takes over Gilley Air someday? If Boeing doesn’t start delivering on their 737 MAX 7 soon Gilley Air might have no choice but to look elsewhere for new 100 to 150 passenger aircraft solutions.
All liveries depicted in this article were conceived and drawn by the Author.
The Boeing 737-300 aircraft template depicted in this article is an all original, in-house template created from scratch by the Author.
All other aircraft templates displayed in this article were licensed from Norebbo and augmented by the Author for display. Blank side view templates of these aircraft are available for purchase through ShopNorebbo.
Route Maps were created using Great Circle Map.