And now, part 2…
Now defunct airlines that used to populate our skys before dereguation… And some of them were pretty damn good!!!
New York Air
Operated: 1980-1987
Cause and result demise: Financial, acquired by Continental
Interesting fact: New York Air was well known for its onboard bagged snacks, known as the “The Flying Nosh”, from the Yiddish word nash, “to eat sweets, nibble on”.
North Central Air Lines
Operated: 1952 – 1979
Cause and result of demise: Merged with Southern Airways to become Republic Airlines, which became part of Northwest Airlines, which is now part of Delta.
Interesting fact: It had its origins in 1939, when the Four Wheel Drive Company (FWD), a major manufacturer of four-wheel transmissions and heavy-duty trucks based in Clintonville , Wisconsin , opened a flight department and traded a company truck for a WACO biplane for their company’s use.
(added August 16, 2010)
Operated: 1931 – 1972
Cause and result of demise: Merged with Delta on August 1, 1972.
Interesting fact: Northeast was perhaps most famous for its dramatic “Yellowbird” campaign where its new delivery of Boeing 727-200 in 1967 were painted white and yellow. Its humble beginnings were as Boston-Maine Airways, which operated out of Boston , and was a joint venture between Boston and Maine Railroad and Maine Central Railroad.
Photo by Bruce Drum.
Operated: September 1950 – October 1986
Cause and result of demise: Merged with TWA.
Interesting fact: It operated a special toll-free number based in New Jersey between the 60s and 80s that required asking the telephone operator for number WX-8300. Also, comedian George Carlin once acted as a spokesperson for the airline.
Photo courtesy of AirNikon.
Operated: 1927 – 1991
Cause and result of demise: Bankruptcy, remaining assets acquired by Delta Air Lines.
Interesting fact: During the mid-1970s, there were two Pan Am flights operated around the world to set or break previous around-the-world flying records. Liberty Bell Express broke the commercial plane around-the-world record with 46 hours, 50 seconds, making only two stopovers during the journey, one in New Delhi and the other in Tokyo-Haneda. The other was over the North Pole using the Clipper New Horizons, which was actually the same plane as the Liberty Bell Express, and took 54 hours, 7 minutes, and 12 seconds.
(added August 16, 2010)
Cause and result of demise: Purchased by Howard Hughes to form Hughes Airwest, which was bought by Republic Airlines in 1980, which was bought by Northwest in 1986, which merged with Delta in 2009/2010.
Interesting fact: Pacific Air Lines Flight 773 crashed near San Ramon, CA on May 7, 1964, after a distressed passenger shot both the pilot and co-pilot before turning the gun on himself, causing the plane to crash and killing all 44 aboard. This was likely the first ever instance of a pilot being shot by a passenger.. Pacific also launched a controversial ad campaign in 1967 designed to play upon passenger’s fears of flying. Flight attendants apparently handed out “survival kits” featuring hot-pink lunch pails containing a small security blanket, a “lucky” rabbit’s foot, the best-selling book “The Power of Positive Thinking”, and a fortune cookie containing the slogan “It could be worse. The pilot could be whistling ‘The High and the Mighty’.”
Photo by RuthAS.
Operated: 1949 – 1988
Cause and result demise: Financial, merged with USAirways, now reincarnated as commuter affiliate.
Interesting fact: With the slogan “The World’s Friendliest Airline,” PSA was known for its sense of humor and its recognizable trademark was a smile painted on the nose of each plane and an accompanying ad campaign declaring “Catch Our Smile..” After PSA was bought by USAir, ex-PSA mechanics would occasionally paint smiles on USAir planes as a joke.
Image courtesy of catchoursmile.com.
Operated: 1981 – 1987
Cause and result demise: Sale to Texas Air holding, integrated into Continental Airlines.
Interesting fact: The airline used a simplified fare structure whereby all seats on a given route were offered at the same price, with slight differences between “Peak” and “Off-Peak” fares. All seats were in economy class, with the exception of “Premium Class” seating on overseas flights. Fares were paid on the flight.
Image courtesy of Ed Coates.
Image courtesy of dc-9.us .
Operated: 1992 – 1999
Cause and result of demise: Integrated into American Airlines.
Image courtesy of Richard Silagi.
Cause and result of demise: Bought by Northwest Orient, which rebranded itself after the merger as Northwest.Interesting fact: Apparently it is still possible to find a few old Republic logos around Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport and Memphis International Airport if one looks hard enough.
Operated: 1949 – 1979
Cause and result of demise: Merged with North Central Airlines to become Republic Airlines.
Interesting fact: Southern Airways billed itself as the “Route of the Aristocrats”. and used the slogan “Nobody’s Second Class on Southern” in its television commercials. It was famous for its promotional shot glasses: for a time, a differently designed shot glass was issued each year. Original Southern shot glasses are valued by collectors of the airline’s memorabilia.
Texas International Airlines (The first airline I ever flew on, in a Convair 660, and first flight in a DC-9A from TXK to DFW)
(Updated August 18, 2010)
Operated: 1944 – 1982
Cause and result demise: Texas Air, a holding company, bought Continental, filed for bankruptcy, and reemerged as Continental Airlines.
Interesting fact: It was known as Trans-Texas Airways until 1969 and its acronym then allowed competitors to derisively call it “Tree Top Airlines” and “Tinker Toy Airlines”. It ran an ad campaign to counter it with a tagline: “No More Tinker Toys. No More Treetops. We are now Texas International Airlines”. It apparently remains to this day the only carrier to bring jet service to the airports in Abilene , Hot Springs , Wichita Falls , San Angelo , Roswell , Hobbs and Texarkana.
Tower Air
Operated: 1983 – 2000
Cause and result demise: Bankruptcy
Interesting fact: Tower Air was prominently featured in such movies as Liar Liar and Turbulence. It was also one of the ‘contract’ carriers for the military, flying the “Freedom Birds” in various parts of the world.
Trans World Airlines (Over a million miles on TWA, flew them all over the world. Great service, coach seats as big as first class seats are today)
Operated: 1925 – 2001
Cause and result of demise: Bankruptcy, acquired by American Airlines.
Interesting fact: In the 1950s the TWA Moonliner, a futuristic exhibit that was placed by Howard Hughes, was the tallest structure at Disneyland and depicted atomic-powered travel to come in 1986.
ValuJet
Operated: 1993 – 1997
Cause and result of demise: ValuJet Flight 592, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9, crashed in the Florida Everglades on May 11, 1996 due to a fire caused by the activation of chemical oxygen generators that were stored in the cargo hold. The fire damaged the plane’s electrical system and eventually overcame the crew, resulting in the deaths of 110 people.
Interesting fact: In order to save itself from the damaging effects of negative publicity, it took on a reverse merger with the much smaller company AirWays Corp. (currently AirTran Holdings). It thus now operates AirTran Airways.
Western Airlines
Operated: 1926 – 1986
Cause and result of demise: Merged with Delta Air Lines after failed buyout from Air Florida .
Interesting fact: During the 1970s, they promoted themselves as “The champagne airline” because champagne was offered free of charge to every adult passenger over 21 years old.
Pan Am, TWA, ValuJet, and Tower Air, again because grandma used to be a Travel Agent (though who hasn’t heard of Pan Am and TWA? those airlines are legends.)
I flew my first inter-continental flight from JFK to Munich on Pan-Am a few months before they went out of business. Worst flight of my life. The crew must have known they were about to be out of a job. TWA had wonderful service. I was sad to see them go.
Western, “The Only Way to Fly”. Many trips SLC-DEN-SLC. One interesting trip SLC/DEN in a 727-200. The crew shut down one engine about at the Meeker VOR. Landing on 9R, full load, hot summer day, they lost a second engine just past the outer marker. We landed short of the runway in the gravel overrun.
Yes, I am an old fart. Even flew on Reeves Aleutian.
Also smashed bags for Thieves, Whores, and Alcoholics for six months before moving to Braniff.
Raptor- Too bad you don’t still have any of those posters from back in the day!
DB- Yeah, Pan-Am went down pretty quickly…
WSF- That was ‘almost’ an ouchie… OM and both in the bag in a 727? That must have been the sink rate from hell!
Yeah, I remember both Reeve Aleutian and Wein!!! We ARE old!
Its sorta hard for me to NOT remember Piedmont as I grew up in Winston Salem. They did a lot of crew training and aircraft repair at Smith Reynolds Airport(KINT).
They are working on resorting the DC-3 in Spencer.
Damm you autocorrect! “restoring”
NFO
That landing was at the old Stapleton. On the West side the first street was Syracuse – about 200′ from the fence. The next street West is Quebec. A normal jet approach went over Quebec about 400 AGL. I doubt we were at 150′. Hard for me to judge as I was in the very last rear row. The noise when we landed in the gravel was terrifying. When the mains hit the end of the runway we bounced hard. I assume the crew still had the nose gear off the ground which is why we didn’t have a greater adventure. Density altitude that day was probably in excess of 10,000′. The crew earned their pay that day. Can you imagine the paperwork afterwards?
That was one time I wished I wasn’t a pilot and understood what was happening.
In re. Republic: It is indeed possible to spot a few old Republic logos around the Minneapolis/St Paul International Airport, and some of those Blue Goose logos might be on North Central planes, which is where Republic got the logo.
Keads- Autocorrect FAIL 🙂
WSF- Stapleton was scary on a GOOD day, much less with a DA of 10k!!! A P-3 normally took about 3k to get off, we left Stapleton one day and took about 6k to get off. Had smoking tires when we DID get airborne, left the gear down for a while to cool them off!
SF- Interesting bit if info, thanks I was not aware of that! Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve EVER been to Minneapolis…
Let’s see, I remember Pan Am, Piedmont, TWA, and Western.
Back in 1990, I can’t remember what airlines it was, probably US Air, but we had to turn around after 20 minutes out of the Pgh Airport on our way to S. Carolina, due to engine trouble. That plane never did take off that day; we ended up on a different plane. It was the SLOWEST 20 minutes of MY life!
Great post(s) NFO, thanks!
What scared you so much about flying RENO Air?
I never understood what American wanted in the merger-within 6 months they had closed almost all the routes they acquired in the merger.
We always called the banana Hughes AirWORST. They were known for calling “mechanicals for not enough seat cushions being depressed. Left me stranded more than once.
Braniff was known as the worlds largest non-scheduled airline. Wally Shirra once told me a joke on that subject. Seems a plane called the tower (i think it was Love Field) and asked for a time check, but wouldn’t identify. Finally the tower gave up trying to find out who they were and said “if you re EASTERN, it is 3:30, if you are OZARK, the little hand is on the 3 and the big hand is on the 6, if you are BRANIFF it is Thursday.
AirTran is soon to vanish as it was just bought by Southwest who plans to absorb the routes and repaint the AirTran fleet in Southwest colors.
Or so I read on the flight home from Austin on Southwest.
Pamela- Thanks, and yes, when you have a ‘problem’ time stretches forEVAR!
Hank- Hank, rule of thumb for high altitude approaches (like Reno), is altitude and airspeed… That turkey had NEITHER! I thought we were going to clip the crest of the ridge on final…
And yeah, AA’s sole purpose with those mergers was to buy up the routes, and then limit the flights (More BIS)… Braniff wasn’t quite that bad, but they WERE close…LOL
TOTW- That will be interesting, since SWA ONLY flies 73s… Sounds like there will be a bunch of 319s on the market rather soon!
Just thought of another.
Western Pacific (WesPac).
Started in Colorado Springs in the 90’s.
Know for their garish paint jobs, often featuring “Simpsons” characters.
Did extremely well.
Decided to move the whole she-bang to Denver’s new DIA in 97.
Started there by making a hostile take-over of the new Frontier.
The WesPac people treated those folks like crap.
Seemed like there was one big problem.
The bombastic CEO decided to go head-to-head with United on route structure.
The end result was predictable.
WesPac went the way of the Dodo, within months.
New Frontier is still with us.
Skul
BTW, have a Merry Christmas
Skul- I never even heard of them… Interesting! Thanks!
My Dad has a picture of my brother R. and I standing in the terminal looking at a Pan Am plane out the window. I was 5, wearing a little sailor dress and white gloves. My brother had a little suit and tie on. Everyone got dressed up, flying was quite the experience. I remember nothing of the flight, just that photo.
One of my flight instructors Jim Mize, was an ex Ozark Captain, awesome man.
Seeing those airlines reminded me of… smoking aboard planes!
Those were the days.
If you flew, you smoked.
.
A search for Texas International Airlines brought us here. Your first jet flight was from Texarkana on TI? The CVR-600 was a regular at GGG when I was a kid, and TI even had their reservations center there. It was really cool, we had our own airline in Texas, and it connected the state in Texas style; evenually right on down to Mexico City. *Snif, Thems wuz the days…
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