Piedmont Airlines (1948–1989)

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For the current American Airlines subsidiary, see Piedmont Airlines.
Piedmont Airlines
IATA
ICAO
Callsign
PI PAI PIEDMONT
FoundedJanuary 1, 1948 (1948-01-01)
Commenced operationsFebruary 20, 1948 (1948-02-20)
Ceased operationsAugust 5, 1989 (1989-08-05)
(merged into
Thomas Henry Davis

Piedmont Airlines was an airline in the United States that operated from 1948 to 1989, when it was acquired by and merged into

USAir. Its headquarters were at One Piedmont Plaza in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a building that is now part of Wake Forest University.[1][2]

In April 1989, shortly before it merged into USAir, Piedmont had 22,000 employees.

code sharing
agreements to 39 more airports.

History

The company that would become Piedmont Airlines was founded by

Thomas Henry Davis (March 15, 1918 – April 22, 1999[3]) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1940, when Davis purchased Camel City Flying Service and changed the name to Piedmont Aviation.[4] Piedmont originally operated as an airplane repair service and a training school for pilots in the War Department Civilian Pilot Training Program. In 1944, Davis filed an application to run a passenger flight service in the southeast. After several years of lobbying government agencies and fighting legal challenges from other airlines, Piedmont received authorization on January 1, 1948. The first flight, from Wilmington, North Carolina to Cincinnati, was on February 20, 1948.[5]

Davis grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

pre-med classes at the University of Arizona.[3][6] At the same time, he worked as a part-time flight instructor
.

Foundation

The Martin 4-0-4 was Piedmont's first pressurized airliner

Like most airlines before deregulation, Piedmont did not have hubs. The airline would eventually fly jets to small airports and connected unlikely city pairs with jet flights: Kinston, North Carolina, and Florence, South Carolina; Roanoke, Virginia, and Asheville, North Carolina; Lynchburg, Virginia, and New York City's LaGuardia Airport; Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and Bristol/Kingsport/Johnson City, Tennessee; and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to Lynchburg, Virginia.

Its early routes stretched from

Cincinnati, Ohio, with intermediate stops. All flights were on Douglas DC-3s
.

Growth

Year Pax-Miles
1951 44
1955 69
1960 94
1965 287
1970 745
1975 1061
1980 2363
1985 8164
NAMC YS-11A
at Washington National.
Fairchild-Hiller FH-227B
at Washington National in 1972.
Chicago O'Hare Airport
in 1979.
Boeing 737-300 at LaGuardia Airport
in August 1985.

Piedmont started with Douglas DC-3s; it added Fairchild F-27s in late 1958 and Martin 4-0-4s at the beginning of 1962. FH-227B flights started (and F27 flights ended) in 1967 and NAMC YS-11A flights started in 1968.[8] In August 1953 it scheduled flights to 26 airports and in May 1968 to 47.

Like other Local Service airlines, Piedmont was subsidized; in 1962, its operating "revenues" of $18.2 million included $4.8 million "Pub. serv. rev."[9]

The jet age

Piedmont's first jet flights took off in March 1967: 92-seat

767-200ERs
.

Route expansion

In 1949 the network extended from Cincinnati and Louisville east to Norfolk and points south. The map reached Knoxville in 1951–1952, Columbus OH and Washington DC in 1955, Atlanta and Baltimore in 1962, New York La Guardia in 1966, Nashville and Memphis in 1968 and Chicago Midway in December 1969.

In 1978, still under U.S. route regulation, Piedmont added Boston, Denver, and Miami. Flights to Dallas/Ft. Worth and Tampa began in 1979 followed by Houston in January 1980 and New Orleans in 1982.[10] In 1984 Los Angeles and San Francisco were added followed by Minneapolis/St. Paul in 1985, Montreal and Ottawa with the Empire Airlines merger in July 1986, and Seattle, Phoenix and San Diego in 1987.[11] In 1988 the airline was serving a new international destination, Nassau, Bahamas[12] and by 1989 was flying to Bermuda and nonstop between Los Angeles and Baltimore, Charlotte, Dayton, and Tampa; nonstop between San Francisco and Charlotte, Dayton and Kansas City; nonstop between Phoenix and Baltimore and Charlotte; and nonstop between Seattle and Charlotte[13] Shortly before the merger with USAir in 1989, Piedmont had hubs at Baltimore, Charlotte, Dayton and Syracuse.[13] Syracuse was the smallest hub; it had been an Empire hub.[14]

Deregulation

London Gatwick Airport
.

After deregulation in the late 1970s the airline grew rapidly and developed a hub at

Charlotte/Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, North Carolina. Piedmont bought Empire Airlines, based in Utica, New York, in 1985 which brought Fokker F28 Fellowships into the fleet.[1]
Passenger-miles for the merged airline in 1987 were almost nine times Piedmont's RPMs in 1977.

Later hubs included

Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS).[1]

Commuter and regional airline affiliates

Several commuter and regional airline affiliates provided passenger feed for Piedmont via

Fokker F-27-600, Saab 340, Short 330 and Short 360.[18]

Absorption into USAir

US Airways A319 in a hybrid US Airways/Piedmont "retro" livery

Piedmont's expanding route system, its loyal passenger following, and its profitability caused it to gain notice among other airlines for a potential buyout. On August 5, 1989, Piedmont Airlines was absorbed by USAir (formerly Allegheny Airlines); the combination became one of the East Coast's largest airlines. USAir later changed its name to US Airways, which merged with America West Airlines on November 4, 2007. US Airways merged with American Airlines on October 17, 2015, with the American name being retained. The Charlotte hub established by Piedmont and maintained by US Airways continues under American; it is now American's second-largest hub.

Henson Airlines) still exists as a brand within American Airlines, doing business as American Eagle
.

Historical fleet

Accidents

On October 30, 1959, Piedmont suffered its first crash when Flight 349 slammed into Bucks Elbow Mountain near Charlottesville, Virginia due to a navigational error, whose cause remains in dispute. Twenty-six of the 27 people on board the Douglas DC-3 perished.

On July 19, 1967, Piedmont suffered another fatal accident when

Boeing 727-100, collided with a Cessna 310 over Hendersonville, North Carolina. The National Transportation Safety Board
(NTSB) found that the pilot of the Cessna went off course, placing his aircraft in the path of the 727. 82 perished in the mid-air collision.

On August 10, 1968, Piedmont Flight 230 was on an ILS localizer only approach to Charleston-Kanawha County Airport (CRW) runway 23 when it struck trees 360 feet (110 meters) from the runway threshold. The aircraft continued and struck up sloping terrain (+30 degrees) 250 feet (76 meters) short in a 4-5 degree nose-down attitude, slightly left wing down. The

Fairchild-Hiller FH-227
continued up the hill and on to the airport, coming to rest 6 feet (1.8 meters) beyond the threshold and 50 feet (15 meters) from the right edge of the runway. A layer of dense fog (about 150 feet (46 meters) thick) was obscuring the threshold and about half of the approach lights. Visual conditions existed outside the fog area. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that the probable cause was "an unrecognized loss of altitude orientation during the final portion of an approach into a shallow, dense fog. The disorientation was caused by a rapid reduction in the ground guidance segment available to the pilot at a point beyond which a go-around could not be successfully effected."[19] 35 passengers and crew out of the 37 on board were killed.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d "World Airline Directory." Flight International. April 1, 1989. 113.
  2. ^ GmbH, Emporis. "One Piedmont Plaza, Winston-Salem - 207116 - EMPORIS". www.emporis.com. Archived from the original on July 31, 2012. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  3. ^ a b Petersen, Melody (24 April 1999). "Thomas H. Davis Dies at 81; Founder of Piedmont Airlines". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  4. ^ "Piedmont Aviation Employee Newsletter Archives on DigitalNC.org". Retrieved 23 January 2013.
  5. ^ "JetPiedmont.com, website of the Piedmont Aviation Historical Society". Retrieved 23 January 2013.
  6. ^ a b "JetPiedmont – Salute to T.H. Davis". www.jetpiedmont.com. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  7. ^ Handbook of Airline Statistics (biannual CAB publication) and Air Carrier Traffic Statistics
  8. ^ Davies says YS11 flights started in 1969, which must be a typo.
  9. ^ Moody's Transportation Manual 1964
  10. ^ http://www.departedflights.com, April 29, 1979; Jan. 15, 1980; June 1, 1982, Piedmont route maps
  11. ^ http://www.departedflights.com, June 1, 1984; Nov. 1, 1984; July 1, 1985; June 1, 1986; June 15, 1987, Piedmont route maps
  12. ^ http://www.departedflights.com, June 1, 1988, Piedmont route map
  13. ^ a b http://www.departedflights.com, June 1, 1989, Piedmont route map
  14. ^ http://www.departedflights.com, Sept. 1, 1984 Empire route map
  15. ^ http://www.airliners.net, photos of Piedmont 767-200 at LAX
  16. ^ http://www.departedflights.com, June 1, 1986 & June 1, 1989 Piedmont Airlines system route maps
  17. ^ http://www.departedflights.com, June 1, 1988 Piedmont Airlines system route map
  18. ^ http://www.airliners.net, photos of Piedmont Commuter and Piedmont Regional aircraft
  19. ^ National Transportation Safety Board. Aircraft Accident Report AAR69-06, August 21, 1969.[1][usurped]

External links

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