ROCKLAND – A new island air service has taken off at Knox County Regional Airport in Owls Head, providing essential service to several Penobscot Bay islands.

Just one month ago, Maine Atlantic Air abruptly canceled its service to the islands, leaving residents wondering what they would do without a quick means of transportation to and from the islands.

Penobscot Island Air has opened for business at the Owls Head airport with a staff of four, who are arranging to deliver passengers, mail, freight and emergency services to the islands of North Haven, Vinalhaven, Matinicus, Islesboro, Criehaven, Swans, Large Green (northeast of Matinicus) and Deer Isle-Stonington.

“We’re up, we’re operational,” company President Kevin Waters said Wednesday at a news conference hosted by the Island Institute. “We’re definitely focused and fired up.”

Waters, also a pilot, was operations manager with Maine Atlantic Air and previously has flown for Penobscot Air Service. In recent years, he started Angel Air in Owls Head, which provided long-distance passenger service for business charters.

Penobscot Island Air’s focus is “to provide the safest and highest-quality … flying service to the people living on the islands of Penobscot Bay,” he said. It will offer service 365 days a year.

“I am totally committed to the islands and to the people who live there,” Waters said. “This is a business, but it is a family too, and I care about family.”

And islanders care about Waters, too, said Peter Ralston, executive vice president of the Island Institute.

In Ralston’s 24 years of work along Maine’s coast, he said, he has never seen such rapid, clear-cut support for a nonisland resident, he said.

“More than once I’ve heard [Waters] called an honorary islander,” Ralston said, stressing that dependable air service to the islands “is not a luxury, it’s a lifeline.”

Some islanders have raised money privately for the new air service to help get it off the ground.

The 50 or so residents of Matinicus, 23 miles from mainland Rockland, rely on the air service in life-and-death matters. A plane ride is 15 minutes, Waters said. A ferry ride takes two hours longer.

Matinicus residents collected nearly $17,000 to support Penobscot Island Air, and an unspecified generous donation came from Billings Diesel and Marine Service of Stonington.

Penobscot Island Air has a six-passenger Cessna 206 and plans to complete the purchase of a second aircraft by Feb. 15, Waters said. A third, larger aircraft may be in place by late spring.

The air service has secured a six-month contract from the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail to North Haven, Matinicus and Vinalhaven, a contract with FedEx for those islands, and has obtained exclusive landing rights on Vinalhaven by vote of selectmen and at privately owned airstrips on Matinicus, Criehaven and Swans Island.

Vice Presidents Rich Wright, Don Campbell and Jim Nichols are part of the team, which is operating out of an office at the Owls Head airport.

For information about the new air service, visit its Web site at www.penobscotislandair.com.