jlemon

And Happy Ninth Anniversary to the OTAQ&D!

On this day back in 2011, Seat 2A started what he initially thought was going to be a rather short-lived thread.

Well, we are still going strong here thanks to everyone who participates as well as those good folks who just keep track of us.

And we are now up to 20.6K replies and 1.5 million views here.

jrl767

indeed, indeed !!

I don't recall how I discovered the thread (although I'm thinking Seat 2A made mention of it it one of his posts on the Alaska Airlines board), but I remember a wry observation at the end of my first post (# 2775) to the effect of "I can see I'm not gonna get a lot of work done today!" ... let's just say that has persisted for nearly 7.5 years

dfw88

From a serial lurker who only knows enough to attempt an answer every once in a blue moon let me just say that this is some of my favorite reading on the web. The amount of knowledge shared here is stupendous and I thoroughly enjoy following along. Thanks to the regulars who make this thread what it is! Here's to plenty more good years.

One day, in a few decades, when questions about the 2000's are old enough to be allowed in I'll have a lot more answers to give

jlemon

Well, sir, with that time line in mind, here's a couple of questions:

31. In the fall of 2000, this airline was operating nonstop service once a week between Oakland (OAK) in the S.F. Bay Area and Papeete (PPT) in Tahiti. What air carrier was operating these flights and what equipment did it use on this service? ANSWERED

32. In the fall of 2004, this air carrier announced it would introduce new Airbus A319 aircraft with flights between cities in Florida and the Washington D.C. area. By the end of year this new A319 service was up and running with service to Orlando and Tampa as well as to Boston. What airline introduced these new flights and what airport did they use in the Washington, D.C. area? ANSWERED

jrl767

today's topics: 11- east followed by south certainly suggests United, with the latter portion being over the old Capital Airlines route from Pittsburgh/PIT and Atlanta/ATL ... I don’t recall UA running their DC-8s along those routes, so the aircraft was doubtless a 727 of some persuasion, and there are two candidate cities for the first stop ... let’s say a -222 via Denver/DEN


26- from AMA, “nonstop to the connecting city” means the options are Houston/IAH, Dallas/DFW, and Denver/DEN; more significantly, “weekends only” service to London will not be aboard a major U.S. carrier, and will certainly arrive at Gatwick/LGW ... BCAL is at IAH, and American of course has the DFW monopoly, so DEN it is ... at which point you realize that the last time you flew AMA-DEN was in the spring of 1966 aboard a Central Airlines DC-3 that stopped in Pueblo and Colorado Springs, before boarding a United/Continental interchange DC-6B to Portland

coincidentally, this trip will also feature two aircraft built in Long Beach, namely a Continental Airlines DC-9 and an Arrow Air DC-8 (given that DEN-LGW is ~4700 miles, this will probably be a -62 rather than a -63, but the "D8S" code in the OAG doesn't distinguish between the two types)

KT550

I'll have a go at that one.....

Independence Air.
They were based at Washington Dulles.

jlemon

11. You're almost there. It was indeed United and the first stop was Denver. This flight also stopped in Pittsburgh as well. However, it did not stop in Atlanta and the equipment wasn't a B727-200. And we await the tap in.....

26. Correct! Here are the scheds.....

CO 926: Amarillo (AMA) 6:00p - 6:05p Denver (DEN)
Freq: Daily
Service classes: F/Y
Equip: DC9-30

Connecting to.....

JV 712/714: Denver (DEN) 8:15p - 12:15p+1 London Gatwick (LGW)
Freq: Saturdays (as JV 712) and Sundays (as JV 714) only
Service class: Y
Equip: Super DC8

jlemon

32. Correct! Here's the Independence Air print ad.....

DHgetready04

jrl767

11- tap time (maybe)

we have a UA 727-100 operating LAS-DEN-XXX-PIT-ATL ... I have four possibilities for XXX; I don't recall UA running many hub-to-hub flights with the standard-size jets, so I'll drop Chicago/ORD from the list, throw a mental dart at the route map, and say Milwaukee/MKE

jlemon

11. UA B727-100: Yep! Second stop Milwaukee: Nope! And I’m sure your next guess will be through the uprights.....

Bluehen1

So, this is likely Corsair and it would have been on a 747 either a -200 or -300. I took Corsair LAX-PPT though all flights originated at ORY so the US stops were intermediates.

jrl767

11- we're in 1975; NW was of course the dominant carrier at both Detroit/DTW and Minneapolis/MSP, so I will take aim at said space between said uprights and say Cleveland/CLE (which, had I thought about it more, should have really been my first guess ... I'm pretty sure CLE-PIT was part of the old Capital network to the southeast and Gulf Coast as well)

jlemon

31. Correct! I believe the service was operated with B747-300 aircraft as I seem to recall seeing Corsair 743 aircraft in California back at this time.

And here are the Corsair (SS) west coast schedules to Papeete (PPT) and also to Paris Orly (ORY) from both Oakland (OAK) and Los Angeles (LAX) in the fall of 2000 as well as the spring of 2001:

https://www.timetableimages.com/ttim...9/ss0009-2.jpg

jlemon

11. Yep! Here's the sched....

UA 244: Las Vegas (LAS) 8:35a - 11:22a Denver (DEN) 11:50a - 4:25 Cleveland (CLE) 5:15p - 5:53p Pittsburgh (PIT) 6:25p - 7:42p New Orleans (MSY)
Freq: Daily
Service classes: F/Y
Meal service: Breakfast LAS-DEN, Lunch DEN-CLE, Dinner PIT-MSY
Equip: B727-100

United was only operating nonstop service into New Orleans from Pittsburgh at this time and this was one of only two flights a day operated by UA into MSY from PIT in the spring of 1975. The other service was also flown with a B727-100 and operated a routing of CLE-PIT-MSY.

BTW, back in 1963 United was operating four daily departures from New Orleans including two flights a day operated with Boeing 720 equipment New Orleans - Atlanta - New York Idlewild, one a flight a day with a Caravelle operating New Orleans - Atlanta - Washington Dulles - Philadelphia, and one flight a day with a Vickers Viscount operating New Orleans - Chattanooga - Knoxville - Bristol/Kingsport/Johnson City - Charleston, WV - Pittsburgh - Buffalo.

Bluehen1

The flights from LAX ran until at least late 2001 as my ex and I flew to PPT from LAX on Corsair a month after 9/11. It really was a strange experience and my colleagues in Arkansas were pretty much freaking out that I was going.