Ransome Airlines

Ransome Airlines was a commuter airline which was headquartered at Northeast Philadelphia Airport (PNE) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded by Dawson Ransome, it began operations as an independent carrier in 1967. Ransome was particularly noted for operating the Dash 7 as it had a large fleet of the type, which was a new, relatively advanced, and large aircraft (seating 50) for a commuter airline to be operating at the time.

Pan Am purchased Ransome in 1986 and renamed it Pan Am Express, with the intention of establishing a commuter network feeding traffic into its "Worldport" global hub New York's John F. Kennedy Airport. [http://www.flightglobal.com/PDFArchive/View/1986/1986%20-%202014.html?search=United,%201986 "The new world of Pan American", Flight International, 23 August 1986, pp. 20/1, 23] ] In late 1987 the renamed Pan Am Express established its first and only overseas regional feeder operation at Tegel Airport in what used to be West Berlin in the days prior to Germany's [German reunification| [re-] unification] towards the end of the Cold War era. [http://www.flightglobal.com/PDFArchive/View/1988/1988%20-%200850.html?search=Berlin%20Regional%20UK "Berlin's commuter market grows", Flight International, 2 April 1988, pp. 6, 8] ]

Following Pan Am's demise in 1991, TWA purchased the Pan Am Express operation. [http://www.flightglobal.com/PDFArchive/View/1993/1993%20-%200652.html?search=Pan%20Am%20Express "World Airline Directory", 1993, Flight International, 24-30 March 1993] ]

History

In 1973 Ransome started a partnership with Allegheny Airlines (USAir from 1979, and now US Airways) under the name Allegheny Commuter. Ransome operated a variety of point-to-point flights in the northeastern US as well as flights feeding into large Allegheny operations like that at Philadelphia. While Ransome and its successors operated under several different brands, the airline is probably best known as an Allegheny Commuter carrier, due to Allegheny being the pioneer in the field of developing code-share and co-branding relationships with commuter airlines, with the Allegheny/Ransome agreement being one of the earliest examples of what was then still a novel idea.

In 1982 the airline's relationship with USAir ended, and the airline began operating flights as Delta Connection in partnership with Delta Air Lines. The airline maintained much of its previous route system, while adding and changing some routes to better connect with the rest of the Delta system.

In 1986 Pan Am purchased the airline. It began service under the new Pan Am Express brand on June 1 of that year. They soon dropped the Ransome name altogether, with the corporation being simply renamed Pan Am Express, Inc.

While operating for Pan Am, the former Ransome route structure was dramatically changed, with the new route structure dropping most of the point-to-point offerings and focusing on providing feeder service to Pan Am's extensive offerings of international flights, primarily at New York JFK, with another large operation at Miami and smaller operations at Los Angeles and Boston's Logan Airport. Some of these new services introduced the airline to new geographical areas of the country, having been previously confined to the northeast. The airline still retained functions such as its primary maintenance base at Northeast Philadelphia Airport, along with a small level of service. In addition, in November 1987 Pan Am Express established an overseas commuter network serving secondary and tertiary destinations in West Germany and other West European countries from its parent company's West Berlin base at Tegel Airport.

When Pan Am collapsed in 1991, TWA purchased Pan Am Express. TWA provided feeder services under the Trans World Express (TWE) brand, with the corporate name changing to Trans World Express, Inc. Under TWA those Trans World Express services provided by TWE were exclusively focused at JFK. On November 6, 1995, TWA shut down its TWE division, with all Trans World Express service after that date being subcontracted to outside airlines, thus bringing an end to the last airline that could trace some of its routes back to Ransome. The company had retained its PNE maintenance base and service on the PNE-JFK route until the very last day; the contracted airlines replacing many of the TWE feeder routes at JFK decided not to serve PNE, and (as of 2006) PNE has yet to see another airline provide any scheduled commercial service there.

Aircraft operated

*Volpar Beech 18
*Nord 262
*Mohawk 298
*Avions de Transport Régional ATR-42 (operated by Pan Am Express and TWE only)
*De Havilland Canada Dash 7

Notes

References

*cite journal| title=Flight International | publisher=Reed Business Information | place=Sutton, UK | issn= 0015-3710 (various backdated issues relating to Ransome Airlines/Pan Am Express, 1986-1993)