Airlines from the Past

[David Vega]

Found a couple of interesting articles/photos about airlines that are no longer with us.
Revisiting the Ghosts of Airlines Past
Airlines that are now Extinct

Don't remember flying Pan Am, but I remember flying Eastern, Branif, Northwest, TWA, Ozark, Continental, Midwest Express (oh those warm cookies and 1st class seats throughout), and Air1. I'm sure I'm missing some. I also think whomever did our livery was probably inspired by the old Frontier Airlines (see slide 8 on the 2d article).

Which airlines that are now extinct have you flown?

Dave
sax702

P.S. Though still with us, I just found out that Alaska Airlines will be serving "free beer" in some of their flights. Lyle, time to go flying?

[Marty_Becker]

Nice post, Dave.

Here is my list of extinct airlines, including old aircraft:

Braniff (Yellow B727)
Allegheny (DC9)
Republic (DC9)
Eastern (DC9, B727)
Piedmont (B737-200)
Ozark (DC9)
USAir/US Airways (DC9, B737-200)
Swissair (DC-10, B747-200)
TWA (B747-200, L1011, B727, MD80)
TWA Express (ATR42/ATR72)
PanAm (B747-200, A300)
Empire Airlines (F28)

The Empire Airlines and PanAm experience was the most interesting, because of the routes I flew with them in 1985. Empire Airlines was also the shortest route I have every flown, Utica, NY to Syracuse, NY and the reverse. Time was less than 15 minutes. The cabin crew even served apples during the short flights.

The purpose was to install a new ATC Enroute Center at the Tempelhof Airport (EDDI), West Berlin. The ATC facility controlled the three air corridors over East Germany into West Berlin. I made the round trip to West Berlin twice.

The full flight route for the two round trips were :

Empire: KUCA-KSYR-KJFK (F28)
PanAm: KJFK-LSZH (B747)
PanAm: LSZH-EDDS-EDDT (A300)

PanAm: EDDT-EDDF (A300)
PanAm EDDF-KJFK (B747)
Empire: KJFK-KSYR-KUCA (F28)

[Dave Blake]

Looks like "Eastern Air Lines" will be back soon. They have taken the initial step to launching a new airline in Miami.

Read more:
http://easternairlines.aero/news/
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/01/29/3 ... n-air.html
http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/Ea ... 351-1.html

[David Vega]

Interesting news Dave. It would be great to see one of the old ones return to life. I'm happy to see they're using the familiar Eastern livery vs. a new one.

Dave
sax702

[Rich]

Alaska Air will be debuting non-stop flights from Seattle to Tampa, FL.

http://tbo.com/news/business/tampa-seat ... -20140211/

Time for some cold beers!


When Jim Swanson and I got together to develop a logo for SunAir back in the days, I originally copied a VORTAC radial for the design. I think Dave V. wisely decided to change that to a sun design which suits our livery name much better!

And I do remember flying and Eastern DC-8 from KJFK to TXKF and a PAN AM 707 from KJFK to MYNN. Those were my earliest vacation flights with my family. Those were the days of the very loud BOAC VC10 that we'd go down to KJFK and watch the action. Such a beautiful sound!!

http://www.vc10.net/History/historyBOAC.html

Thanks for rekindling those memories.

Rich
SAX002
Tampa, FL

[chriszdc]

My first flight was on a Piedmont YS11

Wow, Eastern.... they went out of business just after I started at the FAA