teddybear99

I will Tap in for the final 2 as IAH and PIT are said to be incorrect:

DL - Tampa and Detroit

Seat 2A

9. Hamilton, Ontario has international flights to a single city. Identify the city, the airline providing the service and the aircraft type flown.

WHBM:Think this might have been Nordair, operating to Pittsburgh with a 737. I believe this was part of a commercial deal between Nordair and Stelco, the mainstream Canadian steel producer of the 1970s, to operate direct flights between Hamilton, site of the major Stelco facility, and Pittsburgh, as they had considerable commercial contacts with US Steel and others there.

Until this was agreed, Air Canada out of Toronto were apparently not interested, and many staff actually drove over the border to Buffalo NY and went from there, took a Stelco corporate flight, or even drove all the way. Air Canada probably never imagined anyone would ask for the route, then never imagined that Transport Canada would allow it, then thought it would be on a DC3 or something. But a 737 ? Bigger than AC's DC-9-30s ?

We are sustained here at London City by a similar commercial deal 40 years on, where the BA A318 flight to New York was underpinned by Barclays Bank buying 25% of the capacity for years ahead, which gave BA the commercial certainty to buy the A318s and get the service up and running. it's not 25% of every flight, but averaged over time. The American service from London Heathrow to off-hub Raleigh/Durham is similarly sustained by a long-term agreement with the SmithKline pharmaceuticals company.

jlemon: And I am reminded of a good friend who is an aviation manager with a certain super-major oil and gas company that has a global presence. He was involved in negotiating a commercial deal for employee travel between Houston (IAH) and Amsterdam (AMS). There are only two air carriers operating nonstop service on the route, being KLM and United, of course. Negotiations were conducted with both airlines and it appeared UA had the upper hand with regard to pricing. Then my friend said, "But, United, you are operating a 767 on the route while KLM is operating a 747. It sure would be nice to have a larger aircraft on the service, especially as many of our employees are permitted to fly business class internationally." No problem, said UA, and then offered to operate a B777-200ER with a BusinessFirst cabin on the route. And so the deal was done.

We are blessed to have such qualified discussion. Thank you, gentlemen! ^

Seat 2A

Per teddybear99: I will Tap in for the final 2 as IAH and PIT are said to be incorrect:

DL - Tampa and Detroit

Right on, Teddy. Do you guys have, like, Delta timetables or something? How would you know this?

teddybear99

Living in Miami since the mid 70's..

Bonus question:

DC-3 service? In 1975?

Why yes, actually two different airlines operated domestic DC-3 service into MIA from 5 different cities in 1975. Can you name the airlines and the cities served by each airline?

WHBM

Hamilton also, at the time, had international flights (though not in the OAG) to London. The one in the UK, not the one some miles to the west in Ontario. These summertime charters were with the lesser charter companies (so not Wardair) who kept away from Toronto itself and its high fees. Nationair was one who later tried a schedule with Super DC8s from London Gatwick to Hamilton, but they didn't last. The charters only operated on odd days, while the real bargain operators from London ran to Niagara Falls NY, whereupon family members met you, or Canadian-based tourists drove to there (the market was wholly over the border in Canada). I believe they had US customs there, and didn't have to stop at somewhere like Bangor on the way.

Seat 2A

Re. TPA & DTW 747s into MIA: The amount of knowledge and memory here regarding 40 year old schedules never fails to impress me. You guys are amazing! ^

Seat 2A

Here're the remaining questions...


THE TIMELINE FOR THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS IS 1974
All questions referenced from a North American OAG

7. You live on da south side a Chicago and want to fly out to a bowling tournament in New Jersey. You abhor the long drive through traffic to get out to O’Hare, and especially dislike the cost of parking there – which is exorbitant even by 1974 standards. Imagine then your surprise and delight to discover a two-stop flight from nearby Midway Airport direct to Newark. Identify the airline, the two intermediate stops and the aircraft operating this route.

11. Armed with a good book and a sense of adventure, you board this 11 stop flight between New York EWR and SEA. It departs EWR at 7:15am, arriving Seattle sixteen hours later at 8:26pm PDT. I think we all know the airline. Can you identify all eleven stops?

jrl767

here are 11; I think nine of 'em (*) are keepers ...

1. Detroit (DTW)
2. Chicago O'Hare (ORD)*
3. Minneapolis (MSP)*
4. Bismarck (BIS)
5. Billings (BIL)*
6. Bozeman (BZN)*
7. Butte (BTM)*
8. Helena (HLN)*
9. Missoula (MSO)*
10. Spokane (GEG)*
11. Portland (PDX)*

for the record, it was a Northwest 727-251

JoeDTW

I think Delta was the only major airline flying to MDW in 1974, with 4x day DC-9s to STL. As for the stop after STL, I'll go with ATL.

Another recent route dedicated to a specific company is Nagoya-Detroit. Toyota is headquartered in Nagoya. Despite the decline of its local auto makers, the Detroit area (and its universities) is still the worldwide center for automotive research, so Toyota located their main North American research laboratory in the Detroit area. Many of Toyota's top suppliers also have facilities in the Detroit area.

Northwest began Detroit-Nagoya flights to link Toyota's two main research hubs and also serve passengers going between Toyota's assembly plants in Ontario or the US Midwest and Nagoya via Detroit. This flight was very profitable for Northwest, and has been continued by Delta.

WHBM

It's the same with Birmingham in the UK. The longstanding big final assembly plants of Austin or Hillman have gone, Jaguar Land Rover aside, but there is still a very considerable parts supply and particularly engineering design network which supports a range of flights. Birmingham to Stuttgart 3 times a day today on Flybe at a high yield looks surprising otherwise, as people head over to Mercedes or Porsche HQ. Toyota likewise built their European assembly plant not too far from BHX. If you've got a Korean or many Chinese brands car, chances are apparently it was designed in Birmingham and supported a lot of flying back and forth.

jlemon

Besides Air Sunshine and PBA as mentioned by Seat 2A, I seem to recall there was a third DC-3 operator at MIA back in the mid 1970's: Florida Airlines (not to be confused with Air Florida which was operating intrastate service with the Electra back then). Florida Airlines routes from MIA may have included Fort Lauderdale and Fort Myers.

I always thought I would see Jimmy Buffett sitting near a departure gate at Miami sipping on a suitable rum drink while waiting to board one of these DC-3 flights back in the day. Alas, I never spotted him...... :-:

teddybear99

The airlines mentioned above - Air Sunshine, Florida Airlines, and Provincetown-Boston are all correct. (Air Sunshine and Florida Airlines shared the same ticket counters, so I thought they were one in the same, I was wrong)

The cities served:

Air Sunshine-Key West-Four times daily
Air Sunshine-Marathon-Once Daily-broke up the 4 to Key West in the middle of the day
Florida Airlines-Fort Lauderdale-Once Daily
Florida Airlines-Fort Myers-Twice Daily and a third flight M-F
Provincetown-Boston-Naples-4 times daily

Florida Airlines would operate to Jacksonville and Ocala later in the 70's and used Fort Myers to connect to other areas of the state.

WHBM

If I'd seen him I'd have gone straight up to him and asked for a ride in his Grumman Albatross (same engines and size as a DC3 but a float plane).

He's the ultimate old flying boat enthusiast.

http://www.buffettworld.com/aviation/albatross/

WHBM

Separately ...

Farewell Joe Sutter, generally seen as creator of the Boeing 747 and the one who introduced widebody air travel at the start of the 1970s.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituarie...-jet-engineer/

I hope Boeing do something notable to mark his life.

Seat 2A