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Great Lakes Aviation, Ltd. Reports December 2011 Traffic and a Decrease in the Number of Shares of Common Stock Outstanding

                                  DECEMBER 2011 AND YEAR ENDING STATISTICS

                                        Dec-11                      Dec-10            Change
    Passengers Enplaned                                     43,897            42,462            3.4%
    Revenue Passenger Miles (000)                           14,054            13,022            7.9%
    Available Seat Miles (000)                              29,854            32,487          (8.1)%
    Load Factor                                               47.1%             40.1% 7.0 pts
    RASM (cents)                                             34.32             31.24            9.9%

                                        YTD 2011                    YTD 2010          Change
    Passengers Enplaned                                    523,601           499,439            4.8%
    Revenue Passenger Miles (000)                          162,893           149,131            9.2%
    Available Seat Miles (000)                             370,376           388,162          (4.6)%
    Load Factor                                               44.0%             38.4% 5.6 pts
    RASM (cents)                                             33.08             31.36            5.5%

SHARES OF COMMON STOCK OUTSTANDING REDUCED FROM 14,291,970 TO 8,919,990

On November 16, 2011, the Great Lakes Aviation, Ltd. obtained $29.5 million of funding available under a new financing facility. On that day, the debt obligations with Great Lakes' previous lender, Raytheon Aircraft Credit Corporation, were extinguished and 5,371,980 shares of the Company's common stock owned by Raytheon Aircraft Credit Corporation were returned to the Company. The Company has subsequently cancelled these shares and returned such shares to the Company's authorized but unissued common stock. After giving effect to the cancellation of these shares, the number of shares of common stock issued and outstanding was reduced from 14,291,970 shares to 8,919,990 shares.

Great Lakes is providing scheduled passenger service at 44 airports in twelve states with a fleet of Embraer EMB-120 Brasilias and Beechcraft 1900D regional airliners. Additional information is available at http://www.flygreatlakes.com/ including a current route map at http://www.flygreatlakes.com/route_map/route_map.htm.

All scheduled flights are operated under the Great Lakes Airlines marketing identity in conjunction with code-share agreements with United Airlines and/or Frontier Airlines at our Albuquerque, Denver, Los Angeles and Phoenix hubs. In December 2011, Great Lakes Airlines commenced service from Devils Lake, ND to Minneapolis, MN.

SOURCE Great Lakes Aviation, Ltd.