Hooters owner buys N.C. airline

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - The owner of the Hooters restaurant chain - famous for its hot wings and high-cut shorts - has acquired a small North Carolina charter company in hopes of taking the company name to the skies.

Hooters of America Inc. chairman Robert H. Brooks said Thursday he had bought Pace Airlines, a division of Piedmont Hawthorne Aviation.

The airline has 17 Boeing jets and 350 employees, most of whom are based in Winston-Salem. It specializes in corporate shuttles and business jets, catering to sports teams, VIP business travelers and vacation charters.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"We would hope to stay in Winston-Salem, pending the outcome of negotiations," Darrell Richardson, president and chief executive of Pace, told the Winston-Salem Journal.

Messages left with Pace Airlines and Hooters of America by The Associated Press were not immediately returned Thursday.

But in a news release, Brooks said he intended to establish a charter air service called Hooters Air and would provide leisure travel services for the golf industry to serve Myrtle Beach, S.C., as a prime destination.

The extent to which the restaurant's brand image will be used - beyond the name - was not immediately clear.

Earlier this year, Brooks' offer to buy the assets of bankrupt Vanguard Airlines Inc. of Kansas City, Mo., was rejected.

"While things did not work out with Vanguard, I learned through my due diligence efforts that the charter service segment is a healthier business arena and much better suited for extending the Hooters brand," Brooks said in the release.

Brooks founded Eastern Foods Inc. in 1966, which makes dressings and sauces. Hooters was founded in 1983, and Brooks and a group of Atlanta investors bought expansion and franchise rights for the chain in 1984. Brooks eventually bought majority control and became chairman in March.

Selling Pace allows Piedmont Hawthorne to focus solely on general-aviation services for the private and business sectors, said Dean Harton, the company's president and chief executive.

The company sold its maintenance, repair and overhaul divisions to a new aviation-maintenance company in Kernersville last month, another step in returning to its general-aviation work.