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Corey Perrine/Staff

Station Agent Robert Williams Jr. salutes a departing flight at Augusta Regional Airport.

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Two's company, three's a crowd.

Outside of Delta and US Airways and their regional carriers, other airlines historically have had trouble maintaining a long-lived presence in Augusta, though most of the losses were for reasons beyond the airport's control.

Augusta Regional Airport will welcome back American Eagle Airlines in June. The American Airlines affiliate flew out of Augusta from 1991 to 1993. Its first stint ended because American shrank the number of cities it served and offered those markets to American Eagle, which prompted it to change the cities it served as well.

American Eagle came in as Eastern Metro Express phased out, ending eight years of service in 1991 because its parent airline shut down.

In 2000 and 2001 Comair was a Delta connection carrier to Cincinnati. It pulled out in late 2001 after a pilot's strike and a drop in air travel that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

And then Continental Express took its place as the third carrier in Augusta. It flew passengers to Newark and Houston for almost two years before stopping service in 2004, citing a lack of business passengers.

"The strong support of our local community has created steady passenger growth over the last few years which has made this community more attractive to airlines," said Gary LeTellier, the executive director of the Augusta Regional Airport. "We thank American Eagle for the confidence they are showing in our community. We look forward to making this service a success and to a long partnership with American Eagle."

Augusta topped 200,000 departing passengers only twice last decade -- in 2000 and 2009.

Tim Smith, a spokesman for American Airlines, said it maintains a list of cities that it doesn't serve but could serve.

"It boils down to a lot of number-crunching and keeping a constantly updated wish list. I think it is fair to say Augusta has been on American Eagle's list as a good potential market for quite a while," Smith said.

Smith said the airline is trying to build traffic into its hubs, specifically Dallas-Fort Worth in regard to Augusta flights. American Airlines and American Eagle operate 760 departures a day from that airport.

"It connects to virtually everywhere in our system. When you put together that kind of connectivity, there is importance to looking for new markets that have potential for long-term success," Smith said.

The airline foresees a good mix of business and leisure traffic from Augusta, he said.

Fort Gordon might also be a draw for American Eagle.

"Military traffic these days generates lots of volume," Smith said. "We do carry government-contract travel."

Augusta airport officials say the addition of flights to the Dallas hub is a way to open more access to Western cities and South America.

American Eagle will begin operating out of Augusta in June, the first flights leaving June 10. It will have two flights daily to Dallas on 50-seat regional jets.

Smith said the situation today is different than in 1993, when the airline left Augusta.

Flights from Augusta flew into Raleigh, N.C., which was a small hub for American in the 1990s, primarily serving the East Coast.

"We quickly and unexpectedly in that era found ourselves in the business of serving Latin America from Miami. A lot of that East Coast traffic ... was overflying the Raleigh hub," Smith said.

The decline in Raleigh as a hub affected the cities flying to it.

"That was a different time, and the industry has changed," Smith said.

"We are now playing to our strengths and our big hubs."