Hooters Owner Buys N.C. Charter Carrier

The owner of the Hooters restaurant chain, dashed in an earlier attempt to buy an airline, has acquired a small North Carolina carrier with hopes of launching Hooters Air.

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 based near Piedmont’s headquarters in Winston-Salem, N.C. Pace 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.

In a news release, Brooks said he plans to establish a charter air service called Hooters Air and would provide leisure travel service for the golf industry to Myrtle Beach, S.C. Brooks also has a home there.

In September, Vanguard Airlines Inc. rejected Brooks’ offer to buy the assets of the failed Kansas City, Mo., company.

“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.

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.