Please see post # 30809 for an update concerning my current quiz questions.....

18. Now you are heading back to old Mexico, this time to Acapulco. Your location is Chicago and the flight you've just boarded at ORD operates three days a week with two (2) intermediate stops en route. Name the airline, both stops and the equipment.

Three days a week? Could this be Mexicana? If so, let's go ORD - GDL - MEX - ACA with a 727-200

18. Congratulations! The equipment is definitely a 727-200!

However......the flight in question offered first class and coach. So that rules out Mexicana and their single class, all Y 72S.

And stops were not made at Guadalajara or Mexico City.

Please guess again, sir!

Musta missed that... Braniff - ORD -- DFW - IAH - ACA

20- I somewhat suspect we’re in WHBM territory with this question, but I’ll give it a whirl anyway:

British Caledonian operating a 707 from Gatwick/LGW, putting down at Lisbon/LIS, Rio de Janeiro/GIG, and Sao Paolo Viracopos/VCP

18. Well, I did not initially specify the aircraft was configured with first and coach cabins.

Mexicana followed by your subsequent response of Braniff International are both excellent and logical guesses.

However, the air carrier in question wasn't BN and stops were not made in Dallas/Fort Worth or Houston Intercontinental.

And the answer here may prove to be a bit surprising.

18- I recall Western service at ORD, with a 72S from their Salt Lake City/SLC hub; if this was indeed the case at this point in 1979, the second stop would have been at LAX

20. Your good friend the winemaker down in Chile has now released the very first vintage and reports his Cabernet Sauvignon is already drinking beautifully. In fact, his wine has already attracted the attention of the Wine Spectator magazine which is proclaiming the Maipo Valley in general and his Cab in particular as the Next Big Thing in the wine world! So a big party and celebration is in order at his winery and you are invited. Your current location is London in the UK and you've found a direct flight to Santiago which makes three (3) stops en route. But from which London airport? Well, you will need to include that with your answer along with the airline in question, all three stops and the equipment.

New to this very difficult game. This is the only one that I have a slight clue to the answer.
Which London airport? Gatwick
Airline? British Caledonian
Stops? Madrid, Rio de Janiero (of course, Galeao and not Santos Dumont, whose runway is barely long enough for a helicopter!), Viracopas/Campinas (GRU was not served by airlines in 1979 and Congohas runway was and is still too short)
Equipment? McDonald Douglas DC-10-30. Later, they did acquire DC-10-10 but I don't think it was in 1979 or earlier
Other comments? EVA Air was not around in 1979. They are the present BR. B. Cal., as it was sometimes abbreviated, was eventually acquired by British Airways. Only later was the UK second force (#2 airline) informally Virgin Atlantic.

Summary: BR LGW-MAD-GIG-VCP-SCL D10

20. It was indeed British Caledonian departing from London Gatwick and two of the stops were Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

However, a stop was not made in Lisbon and the aircraft wasn't a 707.

Plus the flight in question actually made four (4) stops en route and I have now corrected the question.

18. It wasn't Western and stops were not made at Salt Lake City or Los Angeles.

Welcome RBW! We are glad to have you on board here at the OTAQ&D!

20. As you can see above at post # 30744, British Caledonian was indeed operating this flight from LGW and you are correct concerning the aircraft type being a DC-10.

You've also correctly guessed two of the stops, being Rio de Janeiro Galeao and Sao Paulo Viracopos. However, the flight in question did not stop in Madrid.

Plus, I screwed up when initially posting this quiz question as we are actually looking for four (4) stops made by this BR service. My apologies!

So please guess again, sir!

First of all, apologies for not acknowledging your response. I don't think I ever got a notification of it, since I look at those just short of religiously.

I see from the later post that there certainly was a SEA-DCA flight with 11 stops, but I don't recall every seeing it listed. I used to go through the itineraries section to pick out the long flights, just looking for that #, but I don't remember seeing that one (which doesn't mean it wasn't there, of course -- it could also be that they didn't market that one end to end, just as you wouldn't have found UA's SFO-RNO-EKO-ELY-SLC-DEN flight if you looked at SFO-DEN). The one I was thinking of actually flew between Havre St Pierre and Blanc Sablon, in Quebec (again, I might have the direction backward). All the airports are still served, but not in one long round-robin trip.

Hmm... well, no stops in Dallas or San Antone would seem to take American out of the equation, and in 1979, I can't think of any new Mexican carriers that had sprung up, so we're looking for a US carrier...

Three days a week has me thinking Frontier, which used to route down through ABQ and ELP to various west coast destinations in Mexico, but of course by 1979 Frontier had divested its fleet of 727s and did not offer First Class at that time anyway.

I vaguely remember Continental flying to Mexico out of El Paso as well about this time. I'm not sure of the destination, but MEX seems more likely.

Delta and Eastern both served ACA, but it's hard tp figure either airline starting a Mexico flight routing out of Chicago, thence to fly away from ACA towards ATL. With all the populous northeastern cities both airlines served, and their traditional route systems, I'm not seeing ORD as a flight origination point.

I think we've gotta look west and/or south out of ORD...

Haven't.mentioned United yet, but I don't think UA ever served ACA.

So I guess we're in wild guess territory. CO used to serve Mexico through places like Brownsville and McAllen, but IIRC, all those flights routed through Houston and didn't happen until the 80s or 90s. And IAH has been eliminated, anyway.

I guess I'll go CO routing ORD - DEN - ELP - ACA with a 72S.

17. You've had a lovely time in Puerto Vallarta and now need to travel up to Edmonton. One airline can conveniently transport you from PVR to YEG via a connection with an interesting multi-stop service being operated on the second flight. Your first flight will be nonstop and the second flight will make three (3) intermediate stops en route. The same equipment will be operated on both flights. Identify the air carrier, the connection airport, all three stops made by the second flight and the aircraft. It was Hughes Airwest operating DC-9-30 service on both flights with the connection being made at PHX. The second flight made stops at LAS and YYC....but it did not stop in SLC, GEG or DEN. So all we need is the missing stop here.

How about Reno?

18. Well, sir, your wild guess is correct! Here's the Continental sched....

CO 21: Chicago O'Hare (ORD) 7:30a - 8:55a Denver (DEN) 9:30a - 10:54a El Paso (ELP) 11:30a - 3:05p Acapulco (ACA)
Freq: ORD-DEN-ELP daily; ELP-ACA Wednesdays, Saturdays & Sundays only
Service classes: F/Y
Meal services: Breakfast ORD-DEN, Breakfast in F & snack in Y DEN-ELP, Lunch ELP-ACA
Equip: 727-200

Continental CEO Robert F. Six mentioned the airline's new services to Mexico in his final letter to the stockholders in the 1979 annual report for CO. Here are some excerpts from his report....

"This is my last annual letter to stockholders as Chief Executive Officer of Continental, and by any measurement, 1979 was one of the most extraordinary years in the history of the United States airline industry. It witnessed massive and rapid changes in route systems due to the implementation of the Airline Deregulation Act, amazing rises in the cost of fuel with consequent upward pressure on ticket prices and, finally, the historic grounding of the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 aircraft for 38 days during the summer travel season.....Your airline operates fifteen new U.S. Mainland routes established since deregulation. Such expansion would have seemed impossible just a few years ago. To accomplish planning, preparation and execution on such a scale in a normal year would have required an all-out effort. In the dismal year of 1979, it asked extraordinary performances from everyone.....The hubs of Houston and El Paso added other segments as Continental solidly developed its new routes rather than dismay passengers and travel counselors by 'in-and-out' marketing experiments.....In October, Continental extended to yet another nation when service to five beautiful resort cities in western Mexico was instituted from El Paso.....As many of the stockholders are aware, I joined the southwest division of Varney Speed Lines, which was the predecessor of Continental, in July of 1936 as general manager. On February 3, 1938, I was named President and Chief Executive Officer and have functioned in that role since that time. I was only the sixteenth employee of the Company and no one dreamed that a tiny southwestern 'puddle-jumper' airline would ever spread its wings across the nation and across the Pacific.....The growth of Continental and the development of my own life are inextricably intertwined. In great part, the history of this airline is my biography. "

The five new CO destinations in Mexico served from El Paso were Acapulco, La Paz, Los Cabos, Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta, all flown with the 727-200.

BTW, as you mention, Frontier was also serving Mexico at this same time from El Paso with flights to Guadalajara, Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo and Mazatlan, all operated with the 737-200.

Ol' El Paso never had it so good with regard to service to Mexico at this time....