Piedmont Airlines (1948)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Piedmont Airlines
Boeing 727 of Piedmont Airlines
IATA code : PI
ICAO code : PAI
Call sign : PIEDMONT
Founding: 1948
Operation stopped: 1989
Seat: Winston-Salem United States
United StatesUnited States 
Turnstile :
Home airport : Smith Reynolds Airport
Number of employees: approx. 19,000 (February 1988)
Fleet size: approx. 200 (February 1988)
Aims: nationally and internationally to London , Nassau and Toronto
Piedmont Airlines ceased operations in 1989. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation.

Piedmont Airlines was a Winston-Salem ( North Carolina ) based US scheduled airline that was founded on January 1, 1948 by Thomas Henry Davis and was incorporated into USAir in 1989 .

history

Origins

Thomas H. Davis was hired in 1939 as a salesman and pilot by the company Camel City Flying Service , which sold and repaired Piper and Stinson aircraft and also worked as a flight school . When his employer ran into financial difficulties in 1940, he took a stake in the company. Camel City Flying Service was then renamed Piedmont Aviation on July 2, 1940 . After the outbreak of World War II , the company also trained pilots for the US armed forces. Thomas H. Davis became chairman of Piedmont Aviation in 1943 and applied to the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) on June 6, 1944 for an operating license to take up regional air services after the war. The CAB granted Piedmont Aviation on April 4, 1947 route rights within the state of North Carolina and for scheduled flights to the Ohio River Valley . The start of operations should take place on September 7, 1947 with three Douglas DC-3 , but was delayed by objections from other airlines. The CAB confirmed the legality of the award again on December 12, 1947. At the same time, Piedmont Aviation was converted into a holding company in order to separate the trading and repair of private aircraft from future flight operations. For this purpose, Thomas H. Davis founded the two subsidiaries Piedmont Airlines and Piedmont General Aviation on January 1, 1948 , both of which were owned by Piedmont Aviation .

First years

Despite further lawsuits from its competitors, Piedmont Airlines began operations with three Douglas DC-3s on February 20, 1948. The first scheduled flight was from Wilmington (North Carolina) to Cincinnati ( Ohio ) and was completed with stopovers in Southern Pines , Charlotte , Asheville (North Carolina), Tri-Cities ( Tennessee ) and Lexington ( Kentucky ). Further line routes to Norfolk ( Virginia ) and Charleston ( West Virginia ) were opened in the same year. At the end of 1948, the company's route network comprised around twenty cities. The ongoing legal battle over the legality of the route allocation by the CAB ended before the Supreme Court of the United States , the Piedmont Airlines on February 6, 1950 granted permanent line rights.

1950 to 1989

As a replacement for the Douglas DC-3 Fairchild F-27 were operated from November 1958 . A used Martin 4-0-4 and brand new Fairchild FH-227 and NAMC YS-11 A were added to the fleet in the 1960s. The jet age began in May 1967 with two leased Boeing 727-100s , which were used until the delivery of the first Boeing 737-200 in 1968. From 1977 used Boeing 727-100s and from 1981 brand new Boeing 727-200s were operated.

After the Airline Deregulation Act in 1978, the airline grew rapidly and built four aviation hubs . After Charlotte (North Carolina) , Baltimore , Dayton (Ohio) and Syracuse (New York) began this successful way of connecting the goals. In the early 1980s, non-stop flights to the west coast of the USA were offered for the first time. The Boeing 727-200 was used for this and first-class seating was also offered on the flights . International scheduled flights from Charlotte to London-Gatwick started in 1987 with brand new Boeing 767-200ERs . In 1988 Piedmont Airlines was the first company in the world to receive a Boeing 737-400 from the manufacturer.

The company took over the regional airline Henson Airlines in 1983 and two years later the Utica (New York) -based Empire Airlines , which also gave the company its Fokker F28-4000 . Piedmont Airlines was bought by USAir in 1987 and merged with USAir on May 8, 1989. USAir renamed the Henson Airlines subsidiary it had bought into the second Piedmont Airlines in 1993 .

fleet

In 1988 , Piedmont Airlines was the world's first airline to receive Boeing 737-400s .

List of aircraft types operated by Piedmont Airlines in chronological order:

Incidents

  • On October 30, 1959, fell short of Douglas DC-3 (N55V) to touch down at the Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport ( Virginia ) the safety altitude . The machine hit Bucks Elbow Mountain at an altitude of 790 meters (2,600 feet ). Of the 27 occupants, only one survived.
  • On August 22, 1962, a Martin 4-0-4 (N40401) had to be written off as a total loss after a landing accident in Wilmington (North Carolina) . The three crew members who completed a training flight survived the incident.
  • On July 9, 1966, the landing gear of a Martin 4-0-4 (N40446) parked in Roanoke, Virginia collapsed for an unexplained reason. Due to the damage, the machine was recorded as a total loss.
  • On November 20, 1966, a Martin 4-0-4 (N40406), which was to be transferred to New Bern Airport (North Carolina) without passengers , collided with several trees as it approached the airport. The three crew members were killed.
  • On July 19, 1967, a Boeing 727-100 (N68650), which Piedmont Airlines had leased from the manufacturer, collided with a Cessna 310 while climbing near Hendersonville (North Carolina) . The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that the Cessna had gone off course and crossed the route of the Boeing 727. All 79 occupants of the airliner and the three people on board the Cessna 310 were killed in the accident (see also Piedmont Airlines flight 22 ) .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Piedmont Aviation Historical Society, The Early Years
  2. ^ Piedmont Aviation Historical Society, Chronology of Inaugural Service
  3. ^ Piedmont Aviation Historical Society, Milestones in History
  4. ^ Piedmont Aviation Historical Society, Fleet Overview
  5. ↑ Rzjets, Piedmont Airlines
  6. ↑ Aviation Safety Network, N55V, October 30, 1950
  7. ↑ Aviation Safety Network, N40401, August 22, 1962
  8. ^ Aviation Safety Network, N40446, July 9, 1966
  9. ↑ Aviation Safety Network, N40406, 20 November 1966
  10. ↑ Aviation Safety Network, 19 July 1967 N68650