jlemon

Excellent questions from WHBM!

And I'm still waiting for the answer with regard to the British airline that served a destination that was located nearly 700 feet below sea level!

I'll take a stab at the first three questions.....

1) I believe Pan Am was operating nonstop between JFK and LAX at this time, most likely with B747 equipment. And I think Eastern may have been flying JFK-LAX nonstop as well with an L1011 once a day. Over at Newark, World Airways was operating a DC-10 nonstop EWR-LAX with their low fare experiment at this time....and back at JFK, I think the DC-8 operator may have been Capitol Air, perhaps with Super DC-8 series 60 equipment on the JFK-LAX nonstop route.

2) This sure sounds like Braniff International, most likely with DC-8-62 equipment. The JFK-MIA flights operated by BN were part of their services to and from South America at the time.

3) From good old Burbank Airport (an airfield I also know quite well having been born and raised in nearby Pasadena), the two airlines operating BUR-LAS service were Hughes Airwest, operating DC-9-30 equipment, and Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA), flying B727-200 aircraft. Later on, PSA operated the BAe 146 on the route and I remember my flight on this "Smileliner" from LAS to BUR following a very rigorous hiking adventure I undertook in the Grand Canyon one summer (and I won't repeat that mistake of attempting to hike out of such a big ditch in the high desert when air temps are over 100 degrees F).

And then there was the high frequency LAX-LAS service operated by Western Airlines. I think WA was flying around sixteen (16) or so roundtrips a day on the route, primarily with B737-200 equipment at this time. The other carrier flying LAX-LAS was PSA, again with B727-200 aircraft.

Other carriers around this same time period (late 70's and early 80's) that served LAX-LAS included American, TWA and United but they operated very few flights. And in August of 1980, they may have not provided service on this route at all.