A Walk Down Memory Lane
 

In other posts, I notice a lot of old-timers kicking back in their rocking chairs with their drool cups, thinking about the airlines that are no more.

A lot of folks seem to remember Peoples Express. Do you have any other memories about airlines that bit the dust that you would like to share?

I'll start. I remember flying on Air Florida between DCA and MIA about 6 months before their terrible tragedy. I was taking pictures out the window on the flight and accidentally dropped my lens cap cover between the seats. After searching for 30 minutes, I gave up but mentioned it to the flight attendant on the way out. All she asked was what seat I was in. Two days later, I received a FedEx envelope with the lens cap enclosed!

Probably I'm one of the few who remember People Express with warm, fuzzy feelings. As a starving student, it was one of the few airlines I could afford to fly. Since I was (then) rather younger (not to mention smaller), the excitement of a trip was more than sufficient to overcome the discomfort of long-lines and cattle-car flight.

Another defunct airline (from the, gasp, Sixties) I remember with rather less affection: Trans Texas Airlines. We used to call it Tree Top Airlines. Routes mostly in Texas (surprise) and Louisiana.

Because I grew up in Central America, I have great memories of flying Braniff and PanAm back when flying (even in steerage) was fun and even comfortable. Of course, it's easy to be comfortable in an airline seat when you're a kid. Here's the amusing detail: when we traveled in the Fifities and Sixties, we used to dress up! Mom would wear a tailored suit, as would Dad (but with trousers rather than skirt), brother likewise in a spiffy suit and I in a proper dress, white lace socks, black shiny shoes and a light tailored coat! My, we were a stylish family.

So ends my jaunt down memory lane.

Cheers!
KatW

Memories! Lots of them. My wife (before we were married) was in New York on business and returned to DCA the day Allegheny (SP?) became US Air (now US Airways). Her flight arrived about two hours late (that's pretty good for a less-than-one-hour flight), and I met her at the airport. Her first comment was, "Well, Agony Airlines just became Useless Air." From all reports, they've improved since then, but I don't really know.
Second memory: An Agony Air flight, New York (don't remember which airport) to BWI on (I think) a DC-9 before they put doors on the overheads. Just before landing, we crossed a weather front (to turn and land behind the storm). The bottom fell out. A passenger on the other side of the aisle still had a drink. It literally came out of the glass and created a column of liquid suspended in air. When we hit bottom, he really looked ridiculous as he tried to catch the falling drink in his glass. Everything in the overheads came out, first suspended in air, then falling on whatever or whoever happended to be below. Fortunately, there were no injuries. Funny in retrospect. Not at all funny at the time.
More to come.

People Express was a class airline that probably tried to do too much for too little. They were probably the best of the cut-rate lines, and it's unfortunate they're not still around to show the way. But then, how many cut-rate lines (Southwest excluded) still are?

I don't think I'm either "sitting in a Rocking Chair" or "drooling." But the airlines that are no more still fascinate me. Kep it up.

Did anyone ever fly on DanAir? They were great fun... They still flew Comet's until they finished not that many years ago.

On the Comet's you used to be able to sit face-to-face at a table for four, which was great, apart from if you were one of the one's going backwards (yuck!).

I have alot of happy memories of DanAir, I used to fly with them on holiday to Spain when I was a child - which isn't as long ago as some of you may think!
MF

I think it was DanAir (about 13 years ago) that flew us from LHR to Jeersey or Guernsey - but I am not sure anymore.

age: I consider myself (only by age) the senior here (near 56).

Uffff - philforest just beats me (born 31)

Does anyone have memories of Freddie Laker's
Airline, since he started the discount airline craze?

All I remember is hearing a story that he went bankrupt and shut down.

The airlines I remember from Commericials:

National with the singing Flight attendants
"I'm (fill in name of female flight attendant) FLY ME!"

Eastern: which used to serve Florida and be "the exclusive airline to Disneyworld." The commercials (in English and Spanish with the silver and blue jet flying over blue skies!)

Pan Am: I really regret I didn't fly one of their flights. I have a mug I bought when the
crew set up a store at Grand Central Terminal
to try to buy the airline.

I've already talked about People's Express,
the official airline for East Coast College students.

Not bad for a kid of 32! (And several hundred in CAT years!)

I'm so disappointed that I don't have any interesting airline stories to tell. Someone should put these tales in a book for youngsters like & jamiel to see "When FLying was FUN!" CATMAN

Don't remember DanAir, but I do remember (maybe on US Air?) the first rows of coach - probably was no first - having that table. Bridge game was fun, especially during takeoff and landing, when they didn't make us fold it up.

Catman -- That would be Sir Freddie's Sky Train, extant from something like 1977 to 1983. I flew Sky Train twice from NYC to Gatwick in 1979 . . . worked out fine and, lord knows, the price was right! Something like $200 (remember these were 1977 dollars!) roundtrip.
Cheers!
KatW

Guess we need some West Coast input on this thread...

Early memories from late 60's -- flying Western Airlines on a Boeing 720 from San Diego to Phoenix. Think they were the only carrier to fly those things!

PSA -- incredible hot pants on the stews (that's what they used to be called). Flew PSA flight 182 from SMF to SAN the day before it crashed (thus becoming forever immortalized in the SAN area as People Scattered Allover)

AirCal -- always seemed a step behind PSA

Hughes AirWest -- the flying banana. Unfondly referred to as Hughes AirWorst.

AeroMexico -- we spent lots of time in Mexico when I was growing up, usually flying from Tijuana. Never flew AM -- it was known as AeroBurro and the pilots used to sit in the bar at the airport and down massive amounts of tequila prior to getting on the plane. Scary in retrospect...

Like KatW, we ALWAYS dressed to get on an airplane. Other than the crowds, that to me is the major change in air travel. In first class I often see people in what I wouldn't consider wearing outside my own backyard!

Memories, like the corners of our lives...

I have midwestern memories of Ozark Airlines---between Chicago and St. Louis. I was a flying geek then too. I was probably twelve, my brother eight, and we were flying together unaccompanied to visit our grandparents in Chicago. I found the one flight each way that was a stopping-flight (mind you there was hourly nonstop service). My brother and I stopped in 5 cities on the trip and never the same one twice (STL/Springfield/Bloomington/ORD on a DC9 going up, ORD/Decatur/Mattoon/Mt. Vernon/STL going back on a FH-227. Am I warped...

No, you aren't warped! When I was 12 years old, my mother lived in Providence, RI and my father and I lived in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

I could fly up on Allegheny Airlines nonstop but always chose to fly a Nord-262 to Newark connecting to a Allegheny BAC-111 that stopped in Hartford on the way to Providence. I chose the 4 hour journey over the 55 minute flight anytime I could.

Also, when I was 16, I flew Northwest from Minneapolis to Seattle. Did I choose the nonstop? Nope. I took the 727 that went Minneapolis-Fargo-Billings-Bozeman-Butte-Spokane-Seattle!!!! The good old days before deregulation....

All right..1963..flying out of Eglin AFB, FL on a Southern (Sufferin') Airways DC-3 to Newark with my parents...

FA's (Stewardesses, then) in nicely short skirts (mini's a couple of years in the future). Plane goes up; plane goes down. Repeat several dozen times. FA comes up to me and asks in a very sexy voice, "Can I help you, sir?" (SIR? I'm 14 years old!)

I hand her the filled barf bag. End of another romance.

Any puke repeats this, I will categorically deny it.

-Harry

Allegheni and Ozark and some other regional carriers did offer (in 73?) a joint-visit-usa-pass, stand-by, 60 days (?), 250 US-$ (it was just when, luckily for us, the exchange-rate US$ to swiss frank dropped from longtime 4.32 to 3.NN ((end of the "Bretton-Woods"-agreement of fixed exchange-rates) (today the exchange rate is 1.37!).

I did buy that one, and travelled (with Gislea) to every corner/airport in the US - if I remeber correctly - the flight from Chicago to Oakland had about 7 landings (and 2 change of planes/airlines).

Talk about hot pants on stews!! Flight on Southwest from Houston to Dallas in the '60s:
We take off and the beverage cart comes down the aisle (remember, this is a one-class airline even then). I order vodka on the rocks (my Russian language training taking over); the stew hand me a glass and holds up a half-gallon bottle, says, "say when." Then comes back I don't remember how many times during this short flight. We land in Dallas, and I hear one of the guys in the row behind me say (in a slur that can't be reproduced on a typewriter): "Why don't we jus' stay on board an' go back t' Houston?"

Hey, before there was mileage, you had to have something airline-related to call an addiction.

I thought of another childhood adventure. My father and I would fly between Philadelphia and Miami every Christmas to visit family. We always flew Eastern or Delta nonstop. When I was about 14, I convinced him to fly TWA from PHL to PIT, connect and continue on TWA to MIA. Why? Because I wanted to fly on a 707 (on the short PHL-PIT route!) one last time since TWA was retiring the 707.

International, Frankfurt to BWI, late 50s, early 60s. Back then, I was wearing a uniform and I took the seat Uncle was willing to pay for. My usual choice was last row aisle. We took off, and the FA came along to ask why I was sitting way back there. My answer: "I'm going to be either first or last to be served, so I get the maximum undisturbed time; if you have any spare time during the flight, you'll probably spend it back here and we can get to know each other better; survivors." Sure enough, I was served first, she had a bunch of spare time and we did get to know each other better. Then, as we're about to land at BWI, the pilot comes on: "Folks, there's nothing to worry about, but I've got a little light up here that says we may have an engine fire. Nothing to worry about (again), but I'm going to ask the cabin crew to get you folks ready for an emergency, just in case. There'll be emergency equipment meeting us on the runway." We got the emergency evacuation lecture and then the crew started passing out pillows and blankets. My stew THREW one in my lap, then sat down across the aisle and said, "NOW I know why you want to sit back here!" We landed safely - no fire - and the "emergency equipment" that met us was a jeep with a fire extinguisher in the basck seat that we left a mile behind a couple of seconds after touching down.

Wasn't there an airline based out of JFK or LAG in the 80's called "new York airways" or "Big Apple airways" that was a discount airline trying to complete with the U-S air and delta and AA shuttles to D-C and Boston?
I think Donald Trump (who I like as much as
Merry Flyer likes Sir Richard) bought it, there were a lot of problems and it went belly up.

And then there's Vanguard Airlines that flies
to obscure little airports along the East coast. They got so few flyers they cut routes
(including one from Buffalo to Trenton, the capitalof the greatest state in the world!)
I think they will join the other carriers in airline legend very soon.

In Australia there's a little airline called
Ayers Rock Air. Has one route, several flights a day: Flying around Ayers Rock. A six seater, one really "Rough and tough" guy
promptly got sick. I had fun sitting next to the Aussie pilot who said "if I fall asleep you'll ahve to fly the plane." Having a Foster's earlier I was ready to try anything!
CATMAn

If you get the least bit airsick, the last two seats in a six-seater are NOT for you.. the front seats provide the smoothest ride (lucky you, Catman)

Bringing this puppy to the top, because I thought it was a great thread...anyone who can add anecdotes to it, please do! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I grew up in the caribbean and remember fondly the Pan Am flights we took every summer from Antigua to New York to visit my Grandmother.

The best however were from the Turks & Caicos Islands to the States - some of the carriers that I remember - Mackey Airlines, Red Carpet, Southeast.DC-3's and Convairs.

It was fantastic. It would take 8 hours to get from our Islands to Miami, stopping at every Island up through the Turks & Caicos & Bahamas. At each stop someone would come on with a bottle of rum, lobster sandwiches, conch fritters, or whatever the catch of the day, and share with everyone on board. By the time we reached Nassau all the adults were dancing in the aisles to a boombox that someone had brought onboard.

About 1981 or 82, I flew Eastern Airlines from IAH-ORD. (if memory served me correctly, they Houston was the hub & lots of flights fanned out from there) They had $49 O/W airfares but the catch was either you could not check any bags (or you had to pay extra to check bags--forgot which)& they were redeyes. Basically they were cargo flights & Eastern decided they could make some extra $ by adding pax to these flights. Worked out great for me. $98RT. This was before mileage runs, etc. Ticket was nonrefundable,etc. Could not beat the price! Only did it once.

I flew in a Provincetown-Boston Airline DC-3 around 15-17 years ago, from Logan out to the Cape. That was an experience. I think she was the highest-hours aircraft in commercial service. PBA went bust in the late '80s.

I flew a TWA 707 on a BOS-SFO westbound transcon, called "Night Coach" service with a 900p departure time, in 1979. IT was my last 707 ride; they left domestic US service soon thereafter. It was great not only because of the 707 but it was the first vacation ticket I ever paid for myself. I miss the "Night Coach" transcons; you sure can't depart the east coast for the west at 900p anymore.

I flew EWR-LGW and back on People Express' one lone 747 in 1982 or '83. The kids who served as cabin crew were so proud of that airplane; they'd acquired it from Braniff, where it had been one of the "great pumpkin" planes that flew DFW-HNL. The fare to London on PE was $149 each way and backpackers used to camp for days at EWR's rat-infested North Terminal, waiting for standby seats.

The other great thing about People Express was the way it got us, um, girlfriends. The weekend fare from Burlington, Vermont to EWR was $19 each way. We could pick girls up at home on Sunday morning for a brunch date -- whip them out to the airport -- and two hours later they'd be having brunch in Central Park. Girls duly impressed, relationship sealed. Eventually, though, People Express unraveled so badly you didn't dare make it part of a date you had any hopes for; queueing all night to get home from EWR was kind of a romance-killer.

Piedmont Airlines had a really good, efficient hub at SYD in the mid-80sl they used to fly banks of little twinjets in there and you could make a connection and get going in about twelve minutes. When US ate Piedmont they naturally closed the SYD base and ruined that good thing.

Flying used to be more fun.

When I lived in Albany, I used to fly Mohawk. First it was the high-wing Fairchild's and then they were the first (or one of the first) US carrier to use BAC 1-11s. When they merged with Allegheny, we called it Mo'-Agony.

Three old airlines that I have fond memories of:

MIDWAY (the first): In the old days, they would offer you a free ticket just for getting someone else to join their frequent flyer club (no cost to join, and the new member didn't have to fly anywhere, just enroll!). My wife and I each got three free tickets out of them (the maximum) before they finally cut the promotion off. Perhaps this unrequired generosity helped contribute to their demise?

PIEDMONT: Had some kind of a special deal for a while where you'd get a certificate for one free roundtrip for every three paid roundtrips you took. The thing is, this promotion was not well publicized, but those of us who were "commuting" on Piedmont every week suddenly started getting a steady flow of free Piedmont tickets in our mailbox, and none of us knew why! Because no one knew about the promotion, it probably added nothing to Piedmont's revenue, which in turn probably spawned the modern-day rule that requires us to register in advance for promotions.

EASTERN: Remember the days before frequent flyer programs were automated? On Eastern, you got a book of frequent flyer certificates, and you'd hand a certificate to the gate agent along with your ticket in order to get your miles credited. On TWA, you got a sheet full of stickers that had your FF account number on them, and you'd paste a sticker on the front of your ticket. Eastern and TWA had a reciprocal FF agreement, so you could earn TWA points on Eastern and vice versa. But the Eastern gate agents would let you use both the sticker AND the certificate, so you'd illegally get credit on both airlines when you flew Eastern. (TWA agents would never let you get away with this.) But, to show that we live in a world where morality rules, the unscrupulous Eastern Airline is long dead, while the morally-upright TWA lives on...sort of.

I have very fond memories of flying PAN AM flights 1 and 2 to/from BEY to JFK (with stops in IST/FRA/LHR). We had just finished a family vacation in Turkey and had eaten our fill of Shishkabob(sp) since we were told that was one of the safest things to eat. One week later, I flew Pan Am to JFK and upon leaving IST, was served shishkabob.

On another flight, they did not load enough breakfasts trays in BEY so they were only serving people who asked for breakfast. The people who were served got very funny looks from the people around them who did not realize what was going on.

Does anyone in New England remember Pilgrim Airlines? I believe they were later bought out by Allegheny....

Growing up in Vermont in the 50s, we kids stopped our ballgames to watch the Colonial Airlines DC-3s fly in and out of Rutland Airport.

When I lived in Alaska for a year in the mid-60s, I remember seeing Pacific Northern's connies at Anchorage International Airport.

I once flew my family of four between Newark and Norfolk for a grand total of $200 round-trip ($25 per person, per segment).

I sat next to a very chatty member of the House of Lords between London and JFK on the Laker Skytrain years ago. We bonded while watching Neil Diamond in, I believe, "Coming to America".

Does anyone remember the airline that flew briefly between JFK and Manchester, England, in the late 1980s? The airline had a Scottish-sounding name that I can't recall.

Ah, how I love commercial aviation nostalgia!

Another West Coaster with fond memories of Western, PSA (loved those smiling faces pained on the noses of the planes), World Airways and, of course, Pan Am. Oh and anyone remember the SFO helicopter? My family and I used to park our car in Oakland and then take that helicopter (what did it hold - like 8 people?) to SFO frequently.

My fondest memory is being about 13 or 14 and out of school for summer. My friends and I would try to plot how we could get places throughout the Bay Area to find some fun. I'd call Western and PSA pretty much daily to check on fares and possible schedules from OAK to SJC and OAK to SFO. They phone line people thought I was nuts, but they always helped.

Pan AM, first class to the islands in the late 1960's! Still have a menu -- ummm!

Then connected to 'Outisland Airways' -- small props where the engine was literally held togeather with bailing wire! Once we were thrilled to get a 'big' plane, that looked in great condition -- but it had problems and they switched us to one of the little ones, and the band on it's way had to sit on their instruments in the front of the plane.

About 10 years ago we flew Pan-Am to TLV and got triple miles for a promo they were running. A few months later DL bought out the routes and the miles all went to DL http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I once wrote up a list entitled "Defunct Airlines I Have Flown". I'm afraid it's sitting on the hard drive of one of the "Defunct Computers I Have Used", but I included totally defunct airlines like Braniff (the original), Eastern, Florida Express, Air Florida, Northeastern, Muse Air, etc. and in a separate category those that merged/were bought out in some fashion like Ozark, PeopleExpress, Alleghaney, Piedmont, Pan Am (the original), Frontier (the original, bought by PeopleExpress...), North Central, Southern, Air Cal, Northeast, National (the original), Western, etc. and coming soon TWA. I didn't try to include commuter carriers flying under someone else's logo (e.g. USAirways Express, etc.).

I remember Air Cal in the late 60's flying from Orange County to San Francisco. Sometimes the fog was so bad that we were bussed to Ontario to fly to SF.

Oh yes, People's was fantastic for the starving student.
[QUOTE]
I'll start. I remember flying on Air Florida between DCA and MIA about 6 months before their terrible tragedy.
[QUOTE]

I've memories from the opposite side of this. My dad was working downtown in DC at USDA when this happened. It was snowing terribly and he was VERY late for dinner and nowhere to be found or heard from. Of course the media was not helping with this one bit and refusing to rule out whether or not any cars had been hit and taken off into the Potomac and were just milking it for all they could.

LSS: Dad walks in the house @ around 22:30, well over 5 hours late, but home nonetheless,himself and car intact.

Answering a question posed earlier in this thread by 0524, you might be thinking of Highland Express. They were a one-747 airline that launched a JFK-GLA service in the late 1980s. Lasted less than six months.

Alternatively there was British Caledonian, a really lovely airline that competed with BA using Gatwick as a hub and adopted Scottish tartans as a brand motif. I believe they flew JFK-MAN for awhile, but I'm not sure. BA ate BCal in July 1987.

[This message has been edited by BearX220 (edited 08-19-2001).]

Flew on Dan Dares last Comet 4 back in England; what a great machine - used to sit on its bum and shoot straight up (ok, i exaggerate just a bit).

Also remember the the BA Viscounts to and from the Isle of Man and Cardiff with continuing service to Leeds/Bradford and Newcastle.

You gotta love the old prop planes - at least you can see when one of the engines stops!

January 1, 1960:

My 32 year old mother takes me (8 years old, my 5 year old brother, my 1.5 year old sister, and my 6-month old sister on an Eastern Airlines Lockheed Electra evening flight from Newark, NY to Miami, FL. We were leaving New Jersey and moving to Florida for good. My father would follow the following week by car. I don't know how mom did it with the four of us. Maybe she took advantage of the "drink service" and I was not aware of it then. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I do distinctly remember the hot glowing exhaust coming out of the engines and thinking that the plane was on fire.

Back in January of 1973, Punki and I flew on Texas Airlines from Houston to Denver and they served one of the best charbroiled steaks that I ever had. I think that they were flying 727s. I think that I still have a Pacific Northern Airlines flight bag from a flight back from Alaska in 1959. The flight originated in Kodiak with a DC3 or 4 with jump seats at every row in the aisle, so no trips to the john! When we landed in Homer on our way to Anchorage, I noticed that the runway was military issue stamped metal. The super connies were one beautiful plane, but preferred the shorter length flights on the 720s. Oh! the good old days!