Seat 2A

Seat 2A

Seat 2A

Alright then - let's clear these off the board. You can do it!!

1. It’s 1988 and you live in Boca Raton, Florida. One afternoon you come across an ad in your Sunday newspaper’s Travel Section for an airline offering great fares and nonstop flights five times weekly between nearby Ft. Lauderdale and Antigua. Identify the airline and aircraft type you’ll be flying upon from Ft. Lauderdale to Antigua.
HINT: The aircraft was built by Boeing and this airline also offered a couple of flights out of New York

2. In the "Good Old Days" United used to operate nonstop DC-8 Jet Mainliner service between Los Angeles and Milwaukee. In early 1986 however, nonstop flights between Los Angeles and Milwaukee are nonexistent. United’s one-stopper through Denver is sold out, so you’ve booked yourself on a two stop flight aboard one of the new crop of airlines that sprung up after deregulation eight years ago. It departs LA at 11:30 am and arrives Milwaukee with plenty of time for dinner with your cousins. Identify the airline and aircraft you’ll be flying upon as well as the two intermediate stops.
HINT: On second thought, no hint. You guys are too smart to not have a good idea of this one

4. Back in the good old days, if you wanted to get from Indianapolis to Ft. Myers, Florida you just called Eastern and hopped on a "Whisperliner" via Atlanta. All of the flights offered First Class back then, too. Now in 1998 there's a local Indianapolis based airline but they are an all-economy class operation. How gauche! Thankfully one airline flies nonstop from Indy to Ft. Myers that still offers First Class. You call them and book a First Class seat on the afternoon departure. Identify the airline and aircraft you’ll be flying upon.

5. In 1981 this U.S. airline’s complete time table shows a total of 28 flights, all of them operating in one direction or another between just two cities with one jet aircraft type. Identify the airline and the equipment it operates.

7. A thorough perusal of the 1973 North American OAG revealed just three airlines that operated the Hawker Siddeley 748. Which ones were they?
LIAT and AeroMexico have been identified
C'mon, you guys - surely you must have a strong suspicion on this

9. You just got a call from an old college roommate to ask if you could make it out to the Grand Opening celebration of his new guitar shop San Francisco. Well sure, why not?! When is it? Saturday evening at 6:00pm. Right on! A quick check of the March 1988 schedules reveals two airlines offering nonstop service from Kansas City to SFO, one of which offers First Class, the other only coach. You quickly book a First Class seat to San Francisco departing on Saturday morning. Identify the airline as well as the aircraft type to be flown.
It's not Eastern

10. You live in Montreal and want to take your family to Disney World sometime in early 1986. Although Miami and Tampa have always been well served with nonstop flights from Montreal, Orlando has not. Thank goodness your travel agent managed to book you all in First Class on a direct one-stop flight to Orlando. Unfortunately, it departs from way out at Mirabel International Airport. Surely you know the drill by now: Identify the airline, the aircraft and the single enroute stop.
It's not Nationair. Nor is it flown by a McDonnell Douglas built aircraft

19. Awright now, here’s your challenge: It’s 1998. You live in Montreal, Quebec and you want to fly to Los Angeles, California with all of the flights being aboard 4-engine jets. The problem is there just aren’t all that many 4-engine jets left flying around these big broad countries we live in. Even so, you’ve found a routing utilizing two airlines involving a single connection, although you will have to overnight at the connecting point. The flight to the connecting city has one enroute stop. Can you figure out the airlines, aircraft and the routing? I’m pretty sure it is the only way to fly all 4 engine jets between Montreal and LA.
HINT: The enroute stops are in North America. No 747s or A340s are involved. First Class is available on one of the airlines...

Bonus Trivia Question: What is the combined mileage of all of the taxiways and runways at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport?[/QUOTE]

OskiBear

LOL! Republic was a bit obscure to me, but growing up in Southern California and living in Long Beach (LGB), Jet America was definitely not an airline I've never heard of (although perhaps true for those in Detroit). Their TV commercials were constantly on the air :-)

Seat 2A

Indeed! And I see you still live in the Long Beach area. Here's something to circle on your calendar:

SOUTH CALIFORNIA AIRLINERS & TRANSPORTATION SHOW
Saturday, March 23, 2019. Long Beach Petroleum Club, 3636 Linden Ave. Long Beach, CA 90807.
Show Hours: 9:00 am until 3:00 pm. Admission: $8.00.
For additional information, see http://www.SCARTSS.com, Dave Cherkis (702) 360-3615 or Marshall Pumphrey (562) 987-1904.

WHBM

Yes, they ran scheduled flights in the mid/late 1980s into London Gatwick from, of all places, Hamilton ON (peripheral Toronto), up to daily in summer, and similarly from Montreal Mirabel to Brussels. These appeared in the OAG. They had a range of DC8, including DC8-62, which came from carriers with F fitouts. It was a time when the Canadian supplemental carriers were offering this - Wardair offered their Big Seat, which was F seating with standard cabin service. Nationair were regarded as a bit of a joke compared to Wardair, but charged bottom dollar.

Your latter suggestion is correct, US President Reagan also visited in 1986 when AF1 was still a 707. Widebodies ? Both British Airways (B777) and Virgin Atlantic (A330) fly there nowadays nonstop from London, it's a significant holiday destination. I see Condor put a 767 in there today from Frankfurt as well.

I remember the 1983 US military invasion there well, as it occured the day I arrived in Los Angeles from London, and was all over the US TV news. Maybe as another Bonus Question, we can ask who was the Head of State in Grenada, at the time of the invasion and indeed nowadays. Answers to the relevant department in Washington of that era, who didn't seem to know.

jlemon

There is also a Nationair timetable out there which states they were operating Toronto - London Gatwick in the fall of 1988. Only the timetable cover is available for viewing (on timetableimages.com) so who knows: perhaps they were serving Toronto via Hamilton at this time. It is also reported that Nationair attempted to operate Toronto - Montreal domestic service for a brief time but I've never seen a schedule confirming this.

As for Grenada, we were there years ago on a sailing trip. Back in 1993, Grenada was served by British Airways with a B747-200 with flights to/from LGW and also by BWIA with L-1011-500 service to/from FRA. The westbound BA and BW flights made intermediate stops inbound to Grenada, BA at Barbados and BW at St. Lucia. The BA and BW flights eastbound to Europe from Grenada each made one intermediate stop in the islands after departing GND as well.

WHBM

For a period in the 1970s a couple of the UK charter operators with their ex-Pan Am 707-321s operated summer flights from London Gatwick to "Toronto", where the airport at the western end turned out to be Niagara Falls NY, not even in Canada.

jlemon

Rather devious, to be sure. And then there was Hawaii Jet-Air which made this claim on the cover of their timetable back in 1970:

HAWAII JET-AIR - THRIFT JET SERVICE TO OAHU, LANAI, MOLOKAI AND MAUI

This message was accompanied by a photo of three of their "jets".....all of which were Twin Otter aircraft.

Seat 2A

And even our own Alaska Airlines got in on the act with its ad claiming "Four Jets Daily to Anchorage". The ad did not refer to the number of flights, but the number of engines the 880 had.

jrl767

this was in the Sep 2017 Alaska inflight magazine ... I was thinking about using this as a trivia Quiz question but figured **someone** would answer it almost immediately

Seat 2A

You got that right. Not much gets past the core cognoscenti here (except for yours truly, perhaps)

jlemon

10. I believe that People Express attempted to serve Montreal at one point but their service did not last very long. So perhaps they served Mirabel instead of Dorval. If so, the equipment may have been a B727-200 with a stop at the PE hub at Newark.

jrl767

jlemon

Not initially. However, by 1986 I seem to recall that People Express did introduce F at least on the B727-200 as the airline had decided to go after business travelers following the introduction of a "Premium Class" on their 747 aircraft.