In March, Seybert's Peninsula Airways celebrates its 50th anniversary. From all the well-known airlines that formed a half a century or longer ago, PenAir is perhaps the only family-owned regional airline that remains in service, while the others have sold to corporate conglomerates, expanded to become their own corporate entities or simply stopped flying.

"Yeah, they're all gone and guess what? I'm still here," Seybert said. "Part of it is our commitment to service, to the community. I've always been service-oriented, whether I made money or not. I did what needed to be done."

Airlines built by Wein, Ellis and Reeve are no longer flying. Brady's Era Aviation is currently in negotiations to be sold by a new parent company. McGee's Alaska Airlines is now based in Seattle and is owned by dozens of shareholders.

Fairbanks-based Frontier Flying Service, originated in 1950 by Richard McIntyre, sold to another family in the 1970s.

The Seybert family still holds about 80 percent of PenAir, he said. PenAir operates 33 aircraft, flying to 40 destinations and expects to generate about $50 million in revenue this year. In terms of revenue passenger miles, PenAir is the largest regional airline in the state.

PenAir got its start in the small fishing village of Pilot Point, located in the Lake and Peninsula Borough overlooking the waters of Bristol Bay. Seybert was 19 years old and was about the only pilot in the village, he said.

Seybert was 13 when his family moved to Pilot Point. His mother was the village's teacher and his father took care of the school and its facilities.

"I was kicking and screaming," he said. "They had to drag me out there."

It didn't take him long to adjust, though, and he soon grew to love the community. Then came the "high school issue." Pilot Point didn't have one in those days, so the young teen had to leave home and attend his final school years in Washington.

That's where he learned to fly. He had spent his summers fishing the fertile Bristol Bay waters, and socked away the money to buy a plane, a 1946 two-seater Taylorcraft. The day after he graduated from high school, Seybert jumped in his plane and flew home to Alaska. It took him five days.

"I didn't learn to fly to make money, I did it for my own personal benefit," he said. "I wanted to be able to get out of that little village."

But opportunity soared, at first by way of a good deed. Seybert's flying career began by his volunteering to fly the sick and injured from Pilot Point to Dillingham for treatment.

"I'd throw them in the airplane and take them to the hospital," he said. "There was no one else to do it. After a few trips, the doc at the hospital said if I got certified, he could pay me for this."

Seybert got his commercial flying certification soon after. That was 1955.

By 1956, Seybert had bought a four-seat Piper Tri-Pacer and officially named his newly formed company Peninsula Airways. Two years later, he hired his first pilot, Gus "Ace" Griechen, who stayed with the company for 30 years.

The company made its first big money supporting area seafood canneries. It didn't come without its unique challenges, however.

"Many times we had to build our own runways," Seybert said. "The canneries were on the water, and float planes were expensive and I couldn't afford to buy one. I had to carry a tide book with me all the time so I could land on the beaches."

But Seybert and his airline adjusted. In 1965, the company incorporated and soon bought a fixed-base operation in King Salmon. Four years later, it acquired the assets of Tibbetts-Herre Airmotive, which had operated from Naknek.

By 1973, PenAir had established regular service between King Salmon and several Pribilof Island communities, as well as St. Paul and St. George. Charter service was extended to the Aleutian Islands, Dutch Harbor, Atka and Adak. An operating base was also set up in Cold Bay.

In fact, PenAir was the first commercial airline to ever land in several of these locations, Seybert said. By the early 1980s, PenAir would become the first air carrier in the United States to receive the Federal Aviation Administration certification to perform Essential Air Service.

For some of its routes, PenAir still uses Grumman Super Widgeons, a floatplane designed in the 1960s. PenAir is the only commercial airline still using the aircraft, Seybert said.

In the 1970s, Seybert and his wife, Jennie, moved their family to Anchorage so that the children could have access to high school.

"We had eight kids in a village of about 68 people at the time," Seybert said. "At one point, we were 20 percent of the town population and 40 percent of the school."

Moving to Anchorage also opened up the opportunity to tap into the city's flying market. In 1985, PenAir opened a base in Anchorage offering charter service from Anchorage to the Pribilof Islands. Scheduled service from Anchorage to King Salmon and Dillingham began the next year.

Also in 1985, Peninsula Airways acquired the assets of Air Transport Service Inc., based in Kodiak. Through the deal, PenAir received a hangar, offices and six aircraft. It began year-round service to several points on the island.

The airline in 1988 bought a hangar in Dillingham to begin service in that region. The next year, PenAir helped support the Exxon Valdez oil spill and received a contract from the Alaska Regional Hospital for 24-hour medevac service.

In 1991, Peninsula Airways began doing business officially as PenAir and developed a partnership with Alaska Airlines. PenAir operates all Alaska Airlines flights numbered 4200-4399 that fly throughout Southwest Alaska and to the Aleutian Islands.

PenAir's revenues are expected to see a huge boost this year since Alaska Airlines recently agreed to a deal allowing PenAir to fly to Dutch Harbor.

"Alaska Airlines basically buys all the seats on the plane," Seybert said. "We took all the seafood workers down there this year, with hardly any overnights for any of the workers."

The seafood plants in Dutch Harbor hire about 5,000 workers, and they all need to get to the island at once, Seybert said. From Dec. 26 to Jan. 19, PenAir sent eight flights a day to the island, compared to the typical three or four daily flights.

Dutch Harbor is notorious for bad weather, and for years that has caused Alaska Airlines to cancel up to a third of its jet flights to the area. PenAir, using prop planes, so far has a completion rate of about 95 percent into Dutch Harbor.

That deal will be a big boost for the company, Seybert said. But the company will continue its commitment to service and to its customers. That ideal has allowed PenAir to survive, even thrive, as a family-owned and

-operated regional airline in one of the world's toughest industries, he added.

Two of Seybert's children and four grandchildren work for PenAir. His son, Danny Seybert, runs most of the daily operations from the company's Anchorage headquarters.

The elder Seybert stopped flying commercially in 1993 after he had heart bypass surgery. Today, 69-year-old Seybert is still president of the regional airline, but he spends most of his day working from home.