Joe Hackett

Played by Tim Daly, Joseph Montgomery Hackett is a highly responsible, compulsively neat pilot who owns the one-plane airline Sandpiper Air on Nantucket Island. Joe is usually the straight man in the series and the nice guy. He dreamed of becoming a pilot as a child, and became the de facto patriarch of the Hackett family after their mother disappeared, causing their father to go insane and be institutionalized.

He had initially intended to launch Sandpiper Air with his fiancée Carol behind the ticket counter, but his brother Brian ran off with her prior to the start of the series, causing a falling out between the brothers. In the show, Joe is shown to be a big sports fan, supporting the Boston Red Sox, Boston Bruins, New England Patriots and Boston Celtics. He also grew up playing baseball and football and played on both varsity teams in high school. Joe graduated Boston College and said he pledged a fraternity, but never mentioned which one. Joe fell in love with Helen Chapell, his childhood friend.

Brian Hackett

Cast of Wings seasons 7–8 (l to r): Tony Shalhoub, Crystal Bernard, Timothy Daly, Steven Weber, Rebecca Schull, David Schramm, Amy Yasbeck

Played by Steven Weber, Brian Michael Hackett is the more carefree of the Hackett brothers. His irresponsibility is often a source of consternation to older brother Joe; he had a "free ride" to Princeton and dropped out, was accepted into the Astronaut training program at NASA and was soon expelled because he was too unreliable, saying that he would have become an astronaut if they let him take his dates into the simulator, and has lost other lucrative opportunities due to his chronic irresponsibility.

Ironically, when Brian has attempted to act responsibly it has caused problems for Joe. When Brian managed to hold down a job flying charter flights on the Caribbean island of Mustique, this also emboldened him to seduce Carol to run off to Mustique with him, which caused a rift between the brothers to the point that Joe cut Brian out of his life.

When Carol left Brian for another man and their father Donald Hackett died, Brian returned to Nantucket, and Joe was eventually persuaded not only to allow him to move into his house, but also to give Brian a job at Sandpiper Air (after some posthumous support from the father). Soon they became partners in the airline. Brian and Joe reconciled and mostly he became his best friend in the series. Brian is a shameless womanizer for most of the series, but has two significant relationships: the first with helicopter pilot Alex Lambert, and then with Casey Chappel Davenport, Helen's older sister (see below).

While Wings was on the air, Weber reprised the role of Brian on an episode of Duckman titled "Role with It".

Helen Chappel

Played by Crystal Bernard, Helen is a petite blonde who speaks with a Texas drawl despite having lived on Nantucket for most of her life. In the series, it is explained that Helen's family moved to the island from Texas when she was ten years old. Though Helen dreams of playing the cello in a large symphony orchestra, she runs the lunch counter in the airport terminal and never really manages to get a music career off the ground until the final episode. Occasionally Helen earns money teaching the cello.

A running gag related to her music is that bad luck always seems to follow her when she plays. Examples of this bad luck include: Helen having to join a string quartet of neurotic individuals as that was the only group at the time who accepted her; Helen getting accepted to a state-run symphony, only to learn the state legislature eliminated the funding; the Boston Symphony Orchestra appreciating a cassette of her cello playing, but then losing the label and having no way to contact her; and when she finally gets a chance to play for the BSO, the plane crashes en route.

Helen battles a compulsive eating habit that caused her to be obese in her youth. Though successful at losing the weight sometime after Brian eloped with Carol, it is still a spectre in her life and a blight on her self-image. Mostly her weight gain is usually when Carol comes to town and makes Helen a mess. She has been a lifelong friend of both Hackett brothers and dreamed of marrying Joe from a young age. Helen married Antonio to prevent him from being deported. Although Antonio won the Green Card Lottery and agreed to end the marriage, when Helen tried to get a marriage license to marry Joe, she found out she is still married to Antonio. She went to Roy and found a way to get a quick divorce is go to Mexico. Luckily she and Antonio are officially divorced. At the season finale of the sixth season, Helen is finally able to marry Joe.

The writers originally had a different character in mind, written for Peri Gilpin: Joe's love interest working at the lunch counter was a woman of Greek heritage. However Gilpin was unable to commit to the role, and thus the new character of Helen was created for Bernard. Gilpin, however, did star on one episode of Wings in the third season, and was later cast as Roz Doyle on Frasier.

Fay Cochran

Played by Rebecca Schull, Fay is Joe's only other regular employee besides Brian (Kenny was an employee briefly in season 2). She is a retired flight attendant who handles the ticket counter, baggage check, and flight announcements for Sandpiper Air. She grew up in Syracuse, NY (next to a chop shop), and lived in Hawaii before moving to Nantucket. She is generally sweet and motherly, though slightly batty. She looks after the younger members of their circle as her own children, although she can be sweetly manipulative. She came to work for Joe when he met her on a flight to Hawaii right after Joe's fiancé left him for Brian. Joe and Fay strike up a friendship and agree to work together at Sandpiper Air.

Fay is thrice widowed; all three of her husbands were named George, and she jokes about a curse that if she marries a man named George, he will die prematurely. In one episode she almost marries a man named Lyle, only to learn that "Lyle" is only his middle name and his first name is George. Her full name is Fay Evelyn Schlob Dumbly DeVay Cochran.

Fay has a streak in which she has touched every First Lady of the United States since Eleanor Roosevelt.

Roy Biggins

Played by David Schramm, Roy Peterman Biggins is the owner of Aeromass, the only other airline on Nantucket and, with seven planes, a larger business than Sandpiper, although Roy had been unable to break into the lucrative business of charter flights. He is also a member of the City Council of Nantucket. It is revealed that he started Aeromass with money inherited from an uncle. Mostly his recurring gag, he usually addresses most of the cast by their last names.

Generally competitive, arrogant and unpleasant, and morbidly obese, Roy often belittles Joe for having a small-time operation and mocks Joe's business skills. Despite this, Roy feels threatened by Joe's presence as a competitor and makes numerous attempts either to buy Sandpiper or to put it out of business. Roy is usually rivals and sometimes enemies of the group.

Roy was married to a woman named Sylvia, played by Concetta Tomei. For several years he claimed that she had died, but it is later revealed that she left him, and is now married to a wealthy plastic surgeon and living in Boston. The couple has one son, R.J. (Roy Junior), who is homosexual. It took a while for Roy to support him and he was proud of him.

Roy is the most dishonest businessman on the island. Examples included forcing a customer who has just ordered a large meal from Helen to board the plane immediately, and then stealing both the meal and the money the customer leaves for Helen. He also established false charities including one for his "late wife" and using the proceeds for fly-fishing trips or to subscribe to the Playboy Channel.

Roy has an autographed picture of Richard Nixon in his office, and was once arrested for trying to force his way aboard Air Force One to have a picture taken of himself shaking hands with President George H. W. Bush.

Also in his office he has a poster of a woman wearing a thong bikini riding on a unicycle. He comments, "If that was Paris and she was holding a loaf of bread, they'd call it art."

While normally conniving and arrogant, Roy does have a sense of fun: since his birthday is February 29, 1948, a leap year, he celebrates it only once every four years as if he were only a quarter of his real age. He drives a purple El Camino, on which he claims he can disconnect the brake lights in order to engage in insurance fraud by being intentionally rear-ended by people driving luxury cars.

Despite his sleazy and conniving nature, Roy does have a more generous side: when Helen finds out that she didn't get properly divorced from her sham marriage to Antonio, Roy helps her concoct an elaborate plan to send Joe away for weekend of fly fishing in Maine while she, Brian and Antonio fly to Tampico, Mexico to get a "quickie" divorce from a Senor Pepe. Roy doesn't try to blackmail Helen or demand money, simply asking Helen to deliver a message to Senor Pepe, "The donkey has died."

Lowell Mather

(Season 1–6, Guest in Season 7) Played by Thomas Haden Church, Lowell is a dim-witted mechanic/handyman who works at the airport.^[3] He is a "free agent" of sorts, on the payroll of both Sandpiper and its rival airline Aeromass, as well as anyone else willing to pay him for repairs. He claims that while he is not an orphan, his brother is. He is friendly with all the staff. Lowell knew Brian, Joe and Helen since they were kids and were friends. He was married to a woman named Bunny with whom he had several children, but they divorced when Lowell learned that Bunny was sleeping around.

After Brian sank the houseboat Lowell lived on, Lowell lived with Joe and Brian for a time, where he revealed a surprising talent for cooking. After about a year, however, his eccentricities became unbearable to the Hacketts, and they kicked him out to find his own place, which coincided with the conclusion of the insurance investigation, the payout allowing him to buy himself a house on land.

Eventually, Lowell is forced to leave Nantucket and enter the Witness Protection Program after witnessing a mob hit. Although it is hard for him to leave the people he has known all his life, Lowell decides he would rather go into hiding than let a guilty man go free to possibly kill again.

Lowell usually wears a grease-stained orange ball cap, although he is sometimes seen without it at times when it is rude to wear hats indoors. During a later season, Lowell's orange hat goes missing. From then on he wears a red hat in its place. When Lowell leaves Nantucket, he gives the red hat to Joe and Brian to remember him by. The brothers nail the hat to the wall of the hangar in memoriam.^[4]

Antonio Scarpacci

(Guest in Season 2, Main Season 3–8) Played by Tony Shalhoub, Antonio V. Scarpacci is an Italian immigrant from Apecchio (in the Central Italian region of Marche), who owns and operates a taxi service to and from the airport. Antonio is mild-mannered, deferential, and hopelessly romantic; he falls head-over-heels for Helen's older sister Casey when she returns to Nantucket, although his feelings are not reciprocated. Antonio was originally a waiter, and made a guest appearance in the second season in this role before becoming an official cast member in the third season (by which time he had changed professions). Helen married him in order to save him from deportation. The marriage mistakenly lasted for three years (unbeknownst to either one of them) long after Antonio got his green card due to an error on Helen's part. He is a big fan of the Mary Pat Lee Show. Antonio is also friends with Joe, Helen, Brian, Lowell and Faye. Sometimes he is annoyed and bullied by Roy.

Alex Lambert

(Season 4–5, Guest in Season 6) Played by Farrah Forke, Alex is a helicopter pilot who moves to Nantucket to start her own helicopter tour business. She had previously flown U.S. Army Apache helicopters in Desert Storm.^[5] It is also discovered that she had posed for Playboy. Though she initially rebuffs the amorous attentions of both Hackett brothers, she eventually falls for Brian's boyish charms. She and Brian live together briefly, but after Brian spends a wild night in New York with Joe and an old friend, Alex throws him out of the apartment and leaves Nantucket for good. She returns a season later to resolve some of the bitterness in their breakup; she and Brian briefly get back together before they both decide it is best to go their separate ways.

Casey Chappel

(Season 6–8) Played by Amy Yasbeck, Cassandra "Casey" (Chappel) Davenport is Helen's older sister. She returns to Nantucket after being abandoned by her husband, Stuart Davenport (played by John Ritter, who was Yasbeck's real life partner and later husband), but despite having grown up there she has difficulty adjusting her upper crust tastes and sensibilities to a working class life on the small island. Antonio falls madly in love with Casey, but she takes little notice of him. Unlike Helen, Casey dropped her Southern accent when she moved to Nantucket. She spends much of season six unemployed and mooching off Helen, until she starts working for Nantucket's tourism organization in season seven.

After she and Brian spend the better part of a season sniping at each other, they end up having sex the night before Joe and Helen's wedding. Afterward they find themselves unable to stay away from each other, having a passionate affair; while Joe and Helen are on their honeymoon, Casey's bra lands on the hearth of the lit fireplace and leads to Helen's house burning down. Her relationship with Brian cools after that, but they maintain a friendship. When she first appears in the show, Casey goes by her married name of Davenport, but after she and Stuart divorce at the end of season seven, she reverts to Chappel.

Budd Bronski

(Season 7) Played by Brian Haley, Budd is a retired US Marine who is hired to replace Lowell. Budd is Lowell's equal as a skilled mechanic and earnest worker, but also as a quirky character. He is jumpy and insecure, and is haunted by an incident in his past when an aircraft he worked on crashed, causing him to face a court martial. Although the military cleared him of charges, Budd continues to blame himself for the incident until Brian convinces him to let it go. Occasionally Budd astonishes everyone with magic tricks, but otherwise he has difficulty interacting with others. After being introduced early in the seventh season, Budd disappears toward the end of the season and is never mentioned again.