Airline History Blog - YESTERDAY'S AIRLINES

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Happy Island, Unhappy Airline: Air Aruba

23/7/2020

The pride of any small nation having its own national airline is tempered by the incredibly competitive nature of the industry and the need for discipline. Too often national carriers of developing countries are ripe for graft and mismanagement. Even well-run airlines can struggle to compete and the history of Air Aruba is a classic example of poor decision making in a tough environment.

Constant Crisis: AVENSA 1994-2004

6/5/2019

Nowadays Venezuela is in a sorry state, wracked by economic collapse, hyper-inflation and a dictatorial regime. The pathway to this has been long and complex and has gradually taken a toll of the airline’s once rich aviation scene, so that only a handful of airlines survive and connections with international destinations are sporadic. One of the highest profile failures was that of AVENSA who had started operations in 1943.

Escape from Dar: Kenya Airways Birth

22/3/2019

The main trio of East African nations, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have a long history of co-operation but also rivalry. This has seen various organisations oversee the joint relationship and historically the sharing of a national airline in East African Airways Corporation. Unfortunately, the failing partnership would lead to the collapse of EAAC and some drastic measures being taken to enable the birth of Kenya Airways from the ashes.

Three Swallows Pt2: Go Getters Go Ozark

27/11/2018

During its first 20 years of operation Ozark had fulfilled exactly the promise that the local service airlines had been created for. It had started and proved a wide range of feeder services and grown demand to the point that it could sustain not just prop-jets but pure jets as well. Even better it had done so profitably and begun to wean itself off of subsidy and pick-up longer routes that the trunk airlines no longer wanted. All in all it found itself in good position to grow into the 1970s and face the challenges of deregulation to come.

Three Swallows Pt1: Get Up & Go Ozark

25/11/2018

Ozark was St Louis's hometown airline and as with many of the local service airlines was a true pioneer of service for the regional customer. A well run and well equipped airline that proudly wore its three swallows for forty years. Its story started in 1943 when four local businessmen (two bus line operators and two attorneys) from the Ozark region of mid-west America came together to try and acquire one of the new licenses being offered by the CAB for feeder airline services.

Air West Pt1: The Airline That Had to Happen

20/3/2018

As the 1960s drew to a close the CAB in the USA was looking for ways to wean the local service airlines off of subsidies. This meant a gradual movement away from serving local communities and instead using economies of scale to serve wider regions. The result was mergers, including the unique tri-merger that created 'The airline that had to happen' - Air West!

Big Bunny: XA-JEB’s Unusual Career

5/2/2018

Aeroclassics has firmly supported Mexican collectors in 2017 with a selection of great releases, one of which is an Aeroméxico DC-9-32. Looking into the particular aircraft’s history it is obvious that it was not chosen at random. For although Aeroméxico flew many DC-9s none had the unique back history of XA-JEB.

Northwest's Heritage Nines Through the Decades: 1967-2003

25/9/2017

Whenever I write a history of one of my US Douglas DC-9s in 1/400 scale there is a good chance that it will have ended up with Northwest, and even possibly Delta, through the continual mergers that constituted the deregulated aviation market in the USA during the 1980s. Following the recent release of a couple of nice NW nines by Aeroclassics in this post I'll quickly look at the livery transitions many of these Diesel Nines went through.

Northwest Airlines 1994/95 Experimentals

16/11/2016

There have been several occasions when airlines have tested out colour schemes on single members of their fleet for various reasons. I don't mean special schemes to celebrate or sponsor something but honest attempts to see what a new look is like in the flesh. Northwest was one such airline to try this method of practical examination out and went further than most.

Continental's Short Nines Pt3: Houston Proud

4/6/2016

Technically this blog post isn't about Continental Airlines at all and in truth this DC-9 never flew with CO proper. It did however fly for Continental under what must be an almost unique arrangement whereby one airline charters another to fly for it on a specific route. This DC-9's true operator was in fact the almost forgotten Emerald Airlines - nonetheless she was still Houston Proud.

Continental's Short Nines Pt2: Lorenzo's 14s

2/6/2016

As was discussed in part 1 Continental took a punt on the DC-9-15RC in the late 1960s that never paid off and in the end standardised its fleet around the larger 727-200. That wasn't the end for the Diesel Nine at CO however. As the 1980s brought deregulation and merger chaos ominously for Continental and Eastern employees this also heralded the arrival of the great satan: Frank Lorenzo.

Continental's Short Nines Pt1: Rapid Change

30/5/2016

Bob Six's Continental Airlines had always been the smallest of the certified trunk airlines but also one of the most adventurous. The US manufacturers were relatively slow to address the need for short-haul jets but as Douglas finally decided upon the DC-9 Continental took one of its characteristic leaps of faith and ordered a new variant. Even though this wasn't a success the DC-9-14/15 would feature in CO's fleet again but for a very different Continental.

West African Nines: Ghana's DC-9-51s

30/3/2016

Ghana has always been one of the more stable African nations and Ghana Airways was once one of the better run African national airlines. The fleet, though small, was kept modern throughout the 1970s and 1980s with Douglas and Fokker products and for many years the airline was the operator of West Africa's only DC-9. In fact the carrier's allegiance to old Douglas products was one of the factors in its downfall.

Hawaiian Nines Pt1: Jetbirds to Pualanis

3/12/2015

By 1965 Hawaiian Airlines was a in a good place having posted record earnings for 1964 of $601,724 on gross revenues of $10,559,047. It had just celebrated its 35th anniversary and had carried over 10,000,000 passengers without a single passenger fatality. Turbo-props were just starting to join the fleet but the future for Hawaiian was jets.

TAA Short Haul T-Jets Pt2: Look of the 70s

21/11/2015

TAA's DC-9s would prove to be a great success but their introduction wasn't without issue. It was nothing to do with the airframe however but to do with the modern two-man cockpit and industrial relations. Once that was out of the way the nines would form the largest component of the TAA fleet throughout the 1970s and keep on keeping on until after TAA had morphed into Australian Airlines.