Author: Robert G. Waldvogel

Ripe, Florida soil, implanted with the right seed at the right time, tended by the optimum gardeners, and fertilized with deregulation, can spur tremendous airline growth in a short time—so much so, in fact, that a tiny intrastate carrier can eclipse its boundaries and be transformed into an intercontinental one. That, in essence, is the story of Air Florida. But, when negative circumstances align, it can also be taken to its demise just as quickly.  Intrastate Carrier “In the 1970s, Miami was developing into a thriving metropolis,” according to Daniel Morley in his “Throwback Thursday in Aviation History: Air Florida”…

Some airlines reflect their country, state, geographical region, and even airport of origin in their names. One reflected its city in both name and logo: New York Air, brainchild of Frank D. Lorenzo. Originally employed by TWA and Eastern in their finance departments in the early-1960s, he subsequently formed Jet Capital Corporation with a partner, issuing shares to himself for only pennies and then using it as a method of financing small, but fledgling interstate Texas International Airlines. Although he became its president in 1972, the youngest of any US carrier to do so, the event became only the beginning…

If there were an aviation equivalent to a Catch-22 situation, then Long Island MacArthur, a secondary or reliever airport to La Guardia and JFK, struggled with it throughout much of its existence—namely, airlines were hesitant to provide service to it because of a lack of passengers and passengers were hesitant to use it because of a lack of service. Origins and Early Service The result of Congress-appropriated funding for the Development of Landing Areas for National Defense, or “DLAND,” the Long Island airfield opened in 1943 under the simple name of “Islip Airport” in honor of General Douglas MacArthur. Although…

Many local service carriers, flying to small communities, improved their image with jet aircraft and harnessed deregulation’s freedom to maintain a rapid pace to profitability. Piedmont Airlines was one of them. Origins Incorporated in North Carolina as an aircraft sales and service company on July 2, 1940, then-named Piedmont Aviation received Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) approval to operate as the only federally licensed facility between Washington and Atlanta. Although its aspirations to begin scheduled air service to destinations in the southeast looked promising when it was awarded a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity to operate to fly to four…

It was the first and, at the time, the largest. It coined terms such as “widebody,” “twin aisle,” “upper deck,” “high bypass ratio turbofan,” and “jumbo jet.” If the world’s least air-minded person did not know a single aircraft designation, he seemed to know this one: Boeing 747. It ushered in an era and redefined capacity and comfort and distance and dimension. But its longevity was never supposed to be. Origins A 1962 US Air Force requirement for a Cargo Experimental High Lift System, or CX-HLS, logistic transport able to carry up to 750 troops became the competitive catalyst to…

The First Ozark Many airlines, especially during the early years of aviation, planted seeds in parts of the country that became their hubs and around which their initial route systems grew. For Ozark Air Lines, that seed was planted in Missouri soil, its hub became St. Louis, and its initial route system encompassed the Midwest. Its origins stretch as far back as 1933 when it first flew between Kansas City and Springfield, Missouri, with high-wing Stinson aircraft, but it was short-lived, lasting only until the next year. The Second Ozark Although a second version was established a decade later, in…

Airlines, through their structure, serve different market segments. Some carry all passengers or all cargo. Some operate regional turboprops or widebody jets. Some are low-fare, and others offer varying classes. And some only serve small geographical areas. Mohawk and Empire were examples of the latter: they were created to serve New York State. Mohawk Airlines Founded on April 6, 1945, as the Airline Division of Robinson Aviation, Mohawk, initially known as Robinson Airlines, began service from Ithaca with three-passenger Fairchild 24s built at Republic Airport on Long Island. A $75,000 loan from Edwin Albert Link, inventor of the famous pilot…

Although Grumman never designed a bonafide “airliner,” it built three amphibious aircraft that found limited passenger-carrying applications. Founded by Leroy Randle Grumman, who was once plant manager of the Loening Aircraft and Engineering Corporation, on January 2, 1930, the Grumman Aircraft and Engineering Corporation itself planted its initial – although hardly sedentary – roots in Baldwin, moving to progressively larger facilities, first to Valley Stream eight miles away, then to the Fairchild Flying Field 16 miles away in Farmingdale, and finally to the sprawling Bethpage plant with which it was, for the most part, synonymous, on April 8, 1937. The…

Airlines can sometimes be considered completed puzzles and identifying the pieces that were used to assemble their picture can shed light on their origin. One of them was Republic Airlines. The Initial Pieces Republic’s origins, like so many others’, can be traced to a once-new breed of operators designated local service airlines. After so-called “trunk” carriers, such as American and United, developed into significantly-sized ones by establishing service at major U.S. cities, a void in smaller communities, with low populations and poor surface roads, was left. Since it was unrealistic to have expected the major companies to have operated into…

Harnessing US airline deregulation, Capitol Air was one of several carriers catapulted to temporary success after transitioning itself from charter to scheduled operations. Founded on June 11, 1946 as Capitol Airways by Jesse F. Stallings, Richmond McGinnes, and Francis Roach, Army Air Corps pilots, it was incorporated in Delaware, but headquartered in Smyrna, Tennessee. It initially operated twin-engine Douglas DC-3s and Curtiss C-46 Commandos. Military service was a significant part of its early history. In 1954, for example, it carried priority freight for the US Air Force and two years later was contracted to transport passengers for the Logistic Air…