Airlines that no longer exist--interesting

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I have flown on many airlines that no longer exist, more of them than current airlines.  TWA, USAirways, Continental, Northwest Airlines, PSA, Aircal, ATA, British Caledonian, TransInternational, Avensa, Mexicana, Taesa, and some more.  What about other simmers?  In 2014 I worked on a contract for American Airlines doing IT testing for their merger with US Airways, specifically their crew scheduling software, which is my contribution to the aviation industry, something I long sought working in customer service from college onward.

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/former-airlines/index.html

John

[Delta111 29]

United, Pan Am, TCA, (Trans Continental  Airlines).....What company was Frank Borman the chairman of...?...That one too....

[Chock 17,769]

Yup, flown with all kinds of airlines which are no more including Dan Air London, BOAC, Caledonian, Monarch, BEA, British Airtours, Cambrian,JMC, Flying Colours, Viking, First, My Travel, AB airlines, Air Atlantique to name a few.

Many of these merged with or became renamed as part of other airlines, so in a lot of cases, they are still there in one way or another, For example, Thomas Cook airlines flights still use the prefix code MT for the flight number identification, which is a legacy of their merge with My Travel, and their Kestrel callsign is also a remnant of previous dealings, a bit like BA using the Speedbird callsign, which was of course the BOAC callsign, named after their logo.

Quite a few of Monarch's old airliners are in the Thomas Cook fleet now and still retain part of their old liveries.

Edited October 22, 2018 by Chock

[mwilk 1,100]

8 minutes ago, Delta111 said:

United, Pan Am, TCA, (Trans Continental  Airlines).....What company was Frank Borman the chairman of...?...That one too....

Borman was chairman of Eastern Airlines. United Airlines still exists.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

8 minutes ago, Delta111 said:

United, Pan Am, TCA, (Trans Continental  Airlines).....What company was Frank Borman the chairman of...?...That one too....

I forgot Pan Am but United still exists, does it not?  I flew Pan Am from South America and Avensa there, both good airlines, Avensa was the first Latin American airline I ever flew and their food and service was just outstanding.  Continental had amazing service, I loved them, flew them to and from Texas.  Mesa air was a good airline, flew them quite often here in Phoenix.  Mexicana was outstanding but I have to say them, my ex wife worked for them as a ticket and travel agent, which is how I met her, at their downtown office in Zacatecas Mexico when I needed a ticketing change my office travel agent in the US could not do.  She told me to go to the Intl airport outside of Zacatecas but it was a long and expensive taxi ride, I remember I had seen a Mexicana office downtown so I hauled my employee and colleague there so we could change our tickets.  And there my future wife was.  My employee hassled her to book a first class seat on Continental to which she replied "I work for Mexicana, not Continental".  She then fluttered her eyes at him and said "On Mexicana, every seat is first class"...  She won my heart with that line as my outraged partner ran to a payphone to complain to my office agent.  Five minutes later he ran back in and said "John, don't book with her, wait!"  Then he ran back out.  My future wife and I looked at each other and said "Who is watching his pay phone?"  My colleague and I became blood brothers over this though, and my future wife would fly to see me or give me free booking on Mexicana to fly from SFO to see her.  I would overnight in Mexico City on the return, but she told me to select her suggested taxi company as many taxi drivers there try to kidnap American tourists for extortionate taxi fares.  One taxi driver tried to do that to me in Mexico until I flagged the police, unbeknownst to him I knew a fair amount of Spanish and understood him talking about his scam.  His taxi was supposed to be a Collectivo because it had what I thought was another paying passenger, but she was with him on the scam.  The cops told him to accept my fare, and get lost.  Wicked man, gave Mexicans, most of whom will give you the shirt off their back, a bad name.

John

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

Wardair was one of the best. Max Ward started with a de Havilland Fox Moth and built his fleet all the way up to the 707s and 747s with a bunch of Beavers and Otters along the way.

He sold it at the right time and got out before the airline industry collapsed, one of the best:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Ward_(aviator)

[John_Cillis 2,406]

5 minutes ago, Matthew Kane said:

Wardair was one of the best. Max Ward started with a de Havilland Fox Moth and built his fleet all the way up to the 707s and 747s with a bunch of Beavers and Otters along the way.

He sold it at the right time and got out before the airline industry collapsed, one of the best:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Ward_(aviator)

The only time I ever flew on a BAC-111 was with British Caledonian between Gatwick and Schipol in 1984.  It was such a low, slow and short hop, slowest jet flight I was ever on, although I had also flown the BAE-146 on PSA which was also slow, once between SFO and Reno and once between SFO and Santa Ana.  Pan Am was the only time I flew on an Airbus widebody, later used by American. 

I flew a Denver based airline that went out of business, not Frontier but another whose name I cannot recall.  Their service was terrible and my wife and I hated it but at least they got us home.  Wish I could remember the name. 

I was very sad when Avensa, Mexicana and Taesa went out of business, all were near and dear to me for their wonderful Latin hospitality (since I am Latin, italian, I resemble that remark, LOL).  But I am also Lithuanian and Scotch Irish and possibly have a trace of native American blood in me too since my Scotch Irish roots trace back to the Mayflower according to my mother (although every mother probably says that to their US Children, lol).  My mix of Italian and Irish does give me a temper, but my mix of brown and red hair gave me a high pain tolerance, my Mom was a red head too and she had a high pain tolerance, rarely complaining when she had cancer. 

Her only complaint was my taking flying lessons, she was a scardy cat when she flew and wanted me to fly with her, which I did on the last flight she ever took from Phoenix to SFO when my Grandma passed, on Southwurst (just kidding, we both loved that airline and sat bulkhead coming and going). 

When I worked at Doubletree Southwest's former HR manager was my HR manager and I loved her, our Doubletree culture was Southwest's too and Doubletree gave me the only trophy ever received by their IT department, given to one of its 40,000 employees every month, for my outstanding customer service as the corporation's PC and Software purchasing and support specialist.  Bragging I know, the hotel business culture evolved from the airline culture, our booking systems and use of yield management came out of airline software and practices in the 80's.

John

[Patco Lch 1,459]

Braniff to Bogata and my most memorable Lanica, the national airline of Nicaragua. Controlling stock was own jointly by Presedentie Somoza the typical banana republic dictator and Pan Am. pan American maintained and crewed theDC6. Sure wish I could get a paint for the PMDG DC6.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

4 minutes ago, PATCO LCH said:

Braniff to Bogata and my most memorable Lanica, the national airline of Nicaragua. Controlling stock was own jointly by Presedentie Somoza the typical banana republic dictator and Pan Am. pan American maintained and crewed theDC6. Sure wish I could get a paint for the PMDG DC6.

I never flew Braniff, or Hughes Airwest, but saw both airlines fly often and loved their colors, especially Hughes Airwest which used to fly F-50's over Napa into Santa Rosa.  PSA/US Airways once had a flight, a BAE-146. from Concord Buchanan in the east bay to LA, which I would see fly over my office.  Never became popular enough though and the route was dumped.  I miss the competition in airlines, kept rates low however I feel safety was less as inexperienced airlines would come into play, especially commuter airlines.  But the ATC strike and firing by Reagan also had a long impact on aviation at around the same time as deregulation did, a perfect storm which changed the industry in the decades that followed.  Now they talk of towerless airports run by computers and cameras in the future, taking humans out of the equation, but that is for another thread and a more serious discussion some day.

John

[charliearon 3,017]

Western Airlines....."The Ooonly way to fly".  My brother-in-law was a "ramp-rat" and a ticket agent '68-'72 at KSFO for Western Airlines.

[fppilot 4,336]

As others have mentioned, that list is missing names, like Frontier, Ozark, Skyways, America West, Braniff, National, Republic, and others....

Continental one had low fares with a tagline of "chicken feed fares".

 

Edited October 22, 2018 by fppilot

[John_Cillis 2,406]

23 minutes ago, charliearon said:

Western Airlines....."The Ooonly way to fly".  My brother-in-law was a "ramp-rat" and a ticket agent '68-'72 at KSFO for Western Airlines.

Western's other slogan was "Three Feet for Your Two Legs", which I loved.  When flying legroom is not much of a complaint for me but seat pitch is when trying to climb over a passenger that does not want to move from his or her seat.  My worst nightmares were last year and in 1992, London to Phoenix, and Narita to SFO, when I had sleeping passengers that had me confined to my seat while flying across the oceans for eleven hours or more.  I decided last year that if I ever fly transatlantic again or transpacific or any flight over five hours, it will be an aisle seat.  If I want to see scenery I can always sim when I come home and enjoy MSE's photo scenery or Xplane11's default scenery, lol...

John

[Holdit 551]

British Caledonian, Dan Air (aka Dan Dare) and Air Inter.

(The Dan Air cabin crew had the smartest uniforms)

 

 

 

[Patco Lch 1,459]

51 minutes ago, Cactus521 said:

But the ATC strike and firing by Reagan also had a long impact on aviation at around the same time as deregulation did, a perfect storm which changed the industry in the decades that followed.  Now they talk of towerless airports run by computers and cameras in the future, taking humans out of the equation, but that is for another thread and a more serious discussion some day.

Guilty as charged. Afraid that was the end of my short lived aviation career. Never been in such a damned if you do damned if you don't situation and hope I never see another one.

[overspeed3 410]

Who remembers People Express and cheap tickets from the early 80's?  I flew several times on their 747's from NYC to LA and back:  You actually bought and paid for your ticket while the plane was already airborne!  I think there was another short-lived venture with a different name, same scheme...