jlemon

5. Absolutely correct!

11. Ah, the air carrier was not Delta and the aircraft type wasn't a DC8. In fact, the airline in question was not based in the U.S. And remember: we are looking for the connecting city as well which, of course, was not located in the U.S.

15. Correct again! Here are the southbound scheds...

UA 63: New York (JFK) 9:30a - 12:25p Cancun (CUN)
Op: Saturdays only
Equip: Super DC-8 (D8S)
Service: Lunch

UA 56: New York (JFK) 11:25a - 2:25p Cozumel (CZM)
Op: Sundays only
Equip: Super DC-8 (D8S)
Service: Lunch

It appears United's JFK-CUN service on Saturdays was followed by CUN-JFK (UA 64) with a 1:45 pm departure time the same day from Cancun while the Cozumel service on Sundays was actually operated with a routing of JFK-CZM-CUN-JFK.

WHBM

The F27 I assume is correct. Not Air NZ. Well most significant domestic carriers in Australia had them. Could it have been East-West, who were a rare Australian independent, although later merged into Ansett ?

jrl767

8- I think there are two candidates here, the first being an American Airlines BAC 1-11-400 Astrojet; there are a lot of possible stops along a reasonably straight line across upstate New York and Lake Erie, so in keeping with Quiz tradition it seems that we're probably after a different routing: how about Washington National (DCA), Cincinnati (CVG), and Louisville (SDF)

jlemon

8. American operating a BAC One-Eleven series 400 is correct! And you have correctly guessed the first two stops as well: DCA and CVG. However, the third stop wasn't Louisville so please guess again.....

jrl767

8- ok then ....the only other city of any size between CVG and ORD would be Indianapolis (IND)
(and I should have known that at the outset, having flown AA IND-ORD in the mid-1970s)

VH-RMD

Indeed it was East-West Airlines.

Norfolk Island was (and is again) considered a regional route which allowed East-West to operate it.

WHBM

That's a very considerable run for an F27, over 1,000 miles. Must have taken around 4 hours airborne from Sydney (or Brisbane ?), all over open ocean, and would be against the prevailing wind on return.

Were they doing a tag from Norfolk Island onto Auckland as well ?

jlemon

8. Yep, the third stop was Indy. Here's the sched....

AA 511: Boston (BOS) 5:35p - 7:01p Washington D.C. (DCA) 7:20p - 8:45p Cincinnati (CVG) 9:05p - 9:37p Indianapolis (IND) 10:00p - 9:46p Chicago (ORD)
Op: Daily
Equip: 400 JET
Service Classes: F/Y
Meal Services: Snack BOS-DCA, DCA-CVG

VH-RMD

From BNE and SYD and no East-West was not approved to do international flights so they returned to the mainland.

JoeDTW

OK, my next guess for the KIN-LAX route would be Mexicana, on a Kingston-Merida-Mexico City (change planes) - LAX route, using Comet 4s.

JoeDTW

Here are my guesses for some of the other questions:

6. In 1966, Neiman Marcus was not the national retailer they are now; they were primarily in Texas. Braniff was switching to the "end of the plain plane" campaign, and the only other airline headquartered in Texas was Trans Texas Airways (aka "Tree Top Airways" or "Tinker Toy Airlines"). I'll guess TXI.

12. Southwest made this switch after they were forced to return one of their 737s, because they couldn't afford to pay for it. By switching to 10 minute turns, they were able to operate their full schedule with one less aircraft - they did not have to eliminate any flights.

18. I think this was operated by Northwest Orient, before they switched their German gateway from HAM to FRA. The two European cities NW served that were closest to HAM were Prestwick and Copenhagen; I'll guess the stop was in the Danish city. The equipment would have been 747s.

jlemon

11. Mexicana is correct with the routing and connection you have described. However, the equipment wasn't a Comet 4. But you are close enough, sir, so here are the scheds.....

MX 304: Kingston (KIN) 12:45p - 1:35p Merida (MID) 2:20p - 3:45p Mexico City (MEX)
Op: Wednesdays and Sundays only
Equip: 727
Class of service: Y

Connecting to.....

MX 904: Mexico City (MEX) 4:30p - 7:35p Los Angeles (LAX)
Op: Wednesdays and Sundays only
Equip: 727
Class of service: Y

As Mexicana so aptly stated: JAMAICA-LOS ANGELES CONEXION IMMEDIATA

jlemon

6. Well, it was not Trans-Texas Airways (TTa), the predecessor of Texas International. And are you sure that TTa was the only other airline headquartered in Texas in 1966?

12. Close enough! From a publication produced by Southwest Airlines commemorating their 25th anniversary:

THE TEN-MINUTE TURN

"The now-famous ten-minute turn was also born out of desperation. This innovation was born in 1972 after a federal district judge ruled that Southwest could not fly charters out of state. Southwest's fourth plane, which we received on September 29, 1971, was not only used on charters but on our regular routes as well. This was the only legal battle Herb (Kelleher) would lose for Southwest, but the Company could not afford an appeal. The aircraft was sold to Frontier Airlines at a $500,000 profit on May 13, 1972. With only three planes, Southwest had to move quickly to keep from cutting back service. Bill Franklin (Vice President of Ground Operations) once again came up with a brilliant innovation - keep the planes on the ground no more than ten minutes, and we could still fly our same flight schedule, i.e. we wouldn't have to reduce the number of our flights."

18. Northwest Orient is correct! Here's the sched....

NW 31: Hamburg (HAM) 12:00n - 12:55p Copenhagen (CPH) 2:05p - 4:30p New York (JFK)
Op: Wednesdays and Saturdays only
Equip: 747
Cabin service: Regal Imperial Service

JoeDTW

If the answer to question 6 isn't Braniff or TTa, my other guess would be Central Airlines.

jlemon

6. And your other guess would be correct! This 1966 Central Airlines print ad also contained other exciting information:

IT ALL STARTED WITH NEW JET-POWERED DART 600's. Now look what else has changed on Central Airlines:

NEW COOL CABINS. Air conditioning works full time, even on the ground when the engines aren't running.

NEW FOOD AND BEVERAGES. Cocktails. Man sized sandwiches. Coffee fresh-brewed in flight.

NEW BOARDING RECORD. Passengers boarded so far this year are running 30% over boardings for the same period last year.

We serve 41 cities in 6 Central states.

As we have discussed in the past, Central was planning to enter the pure jet age with DC9-10 aircraft. However, as we have also previously discussed, along came Frontier which acquired and merged with Central which in turn resulted in the DC9 never joining the latter carrier's fleet.