Alpine Air, the small Provo, Utah, air carrier that operates a fleet of Beech aircraft for specialty mail and freight service, said it kept on the right path in the quarter ended April 30, reporting a profit of $451,000 compared with a loss of $754,000 a year earlier.

Alpine credited the turnaround to a new business model for its U.S. Postal Service routes in Hawaii, which allows it to redeploy company-owned aircraft "to better serve mainland routes."

CEO Gene Mallette said that was the third straight quarter of improving profitability, showing that Alpine "continues to diversify its client base and better utilize its assets and operations."

Alpine also said it won new mail contracts to cover Montana and South Dakota that should generate $25 million in revenue over three years, with options to extend the contracts up to three more years.

For the recent quarter, Alpine said operating revenue of $3.75 million was down from $4.48 million in the 2005 period. But the carrier slashed costs, so that operating profit of $369,000 compared with an operating loss a year ago of $1.07 million. Before taxes, it had net income of $816,000 versus a loss of $1.82 million.

John D. Boyd