Western Airlines

Infobox Airline
airline = Western Airlines


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IATA = WA
ICAO = WAL
callsign = Western
founded = 1925
commenced = April 1926
ceased = September 9, 1986
hubs = Los Angeles International Airport
Salt Lake City International Airport
Stapleton International Airport (Denver)
secondary_hubs =
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frequent_flyer =
lounge =
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headquarters = Los Angeles, California flagicon|California
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website =

Western Airlines airline codes|WA|WAL|Western was a large airline based in California, with operations throughout the Western United States, and hubs at Los Angeles International Airport, Salt Lake City International Airport, and the former Stapleton International Airport in Denver.

History

Western Air Express

In 1925, the United States Postal Service began to give airlines contracts to carry air mail all around the country. The company first incorporated in 1925 as "Western Air Express" by Harris Hanshue. It applied for, and was awarded, the 650-mile long Contract Air Mail Route #4 (CAM-4) from Salt Lake City, Utah to Los Angeles. In April 1926, Western's first flight took place with a Douglas M-2 airplane. It began offering passenger services a month later, when the first commercial passenger flight took place at Woodward Field. Ben F. Redman (then president of the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce) and J.A. Tomlinson perched atop U.S. mail sacks and flew with pilot C.N. "Jimmy" James on his regular eight-hour mail delivery flight to Los Angeles. This was the first regularly scheduled passenger airline service in U.S. History.

Transcontinental & Western Airlines

The company reincorporated in 1928 as Western Air Express Corp. Then, in 1930, purchased Standard Airlines, subsidiary of Aero Corp. of Ca. founded in 1926 by Paul E. Richter, Jack Frye and Walter Hamilton. WAE with Fokker aircraft merged with Transcontinental Air Transport to form TWA.

General Air Lines

In 1934, Western Air Express broke off from TWA and briefly changed its name to General Air Lines, returning to the name Western Air Express after several months.

Western Airlines

In 1941 Western Air Express changed its name to Western Air Lines, which was later altered to Western Airlines. After World War II, Western expanded into a large regional airline, introducing service on the Lockheed Constellation, Douglas DC-6, and Lockheed Electra. It merged in 1967 with Pacific Northern Airlines and in the late 60s pushed for an all-jet fleet, adding Boeing 707s, 727s and 737s to its fleet of Boeing 720s. In 1973, Western added McDonnell Douglas DC-10s to its fleet, marketing their wide-body cabins as "Spaceships".

Western was headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Its major hubs were at LAX and Salt Lake City, Utah. Prior to airline deregulation, it had smaller hubs in Las Vegas, Nevada and Denver-Stapleton. [Wadley, Carma. "Utahns were quick to embrace aviation and help achieve mastery of the skies." "Desert Morning News" Thursday, December 4, 2003.]

At its peak in the 1970s and 1980s, Western flew to many cities across the Western United States, and to various destinations in Mexico (Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco, Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo and Mazatlan), Alaska (Anchorage and Fairbanks), Hawaii (Honolulu, Maui and Kona), and Canada (Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton). Western also maintained a large intrastate route structure within its home state of California as well, competing vigorously with PSA and AirCal.

In 1981, Western Airlines began international flights from Anchorage and Denver to London Gatwick Airport with DC-10 aircraft. As it extended its network to airports on the East Coast like Washington-Dulles, Newark International Airport and Boston-Logan, Western Airlines became a prominent sponsor of the Bob Barker television show "The Price is Right", to try to make customers from the East more aware of its presence. In the late 1970s, Western Airlines and Continental Airlines had merger discussions, but no definitive merger agreement was ever reached.

Delta Air Lines

In the early 1980s, Air Florida tried to buy Western Airlines, but it was able to purchase only 16 percent of the airline's stock. Finally, on 9 September 1986 Western Airlines was purchased by Delta Air Lines, and was fully merged into that airline on 1 April 1987. After the merger, Delta eventually released the name Western Airlines. Delta has maintained Western's former Salt Lake City hub, and uses the Los Angeles International Airport as a major gateway to Mexico's many vacation hot spots.

Incidents and accidents

*Jan 12, 1937, Western Air Express Boeing 247 Flight from Salt Lake City to Burbank crashed near Newhall, California, killing Martin Johnson of Martin and Osa Johnson.
*On the night of 20 April 1953, Western Air Lines Flight 636, flying the last leg of a Los Angeles-San Francisco-Oakland itinerary, descended below the prescribed minimum altitude of 500 feet and crashed into the waters of San Francisco Bay, killing eight of the ten people on board the Douglas DC-6 airliner.
*On 31 October 1979, Western Airlines Flight 2605 crashed while landing at Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, killing 72. [ [http://www.planecrashinfo.com/1979/1979-72.htm Plane Crash Info re Western Airlines Flight 2605] ] The crew of the DC-10 had landed on the wrong runway and the jetliner impacted construction vehicles that were on the closed runway.

Advertising

Western can also be noted for contributing to popular culture with its 1960s advertising slogan, "It's the oooooonly way to fly!" Spoken by the Wally Bird, an animated bird hitching a ride aboard the fuselage of a Western airliner, and voiced by veteran actor Shepard Menken, the phrase soon found its way into animated cartoons by Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera. Another famous advertising campaign by the airline centered on Star Trek icons William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. During the 1970s, they promoted themselves as "the champagne airline" because champagne was offered free of charge to every adult passenger over 21 years old. (As an aside, Jim Backus uttered this phrase while piloting an airplane somewhat inebriated in the movie "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World".)

Western Airlines was also famous for its "Flying W" corporate identity and aircraft livery. Introduced in the mid-1970s, the unique color scheme featured a large red stylized "W" which fused into a red cheatline running the length of an all-white fuselage. This new corporate identity was the subject of litigation by Winnebago Industries, which contended the new "Flying W" was too similar to its own stylized "W" logo. In its final years, Western Airlines slightly modified its corporate identity by stripping the white fuselage to bare metal, while retaining the red "Flying W" (albeit with a dark blue shadow). This color scheme was also affectionately known as "Bud Lite" due to its resemblance to a popular beer's can design.

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Pearcy, Arthur. "Douglas Propliners: DC-1 – DC-7". London: Airlife, 1995, p. 14. ISBN 1-85310-261-X.

External links

* [http://www.airchive.com/SITE%20PAGES/TIMETABLES-WESTERN.html Historical timetables and route maps]
* [http://www.airtimes.com/cgat/usc/western.htm Historical timetable covers]
* [http://www.slcairport.com/28.asp Salt Lake City International Airport]
* [http://www.earlyaviators.com/ejames.htm Early Aviators]
* [http://davidpihl.bravehost.com/Middle/RIGHT%20IN%20THE%20MIDDLE.htm "Right in the Middle of it All" History of the region]
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20060106204049/http://airlines.afriqonline.com/airlines/724.htm History of Western Airlines and the planes it operated] - archive.org copy of now-defunct page