Defunct airline of the United States (1948?1989)
Piedmont Airlines
was a
local service carrier
, a scheduled carrier in the
United States
that operated from 1948 until it merged with
USAir
in 1989. 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.
[1]
In September 1988 it flew to 95 airports from hubs in the eastern United States; its commuter and regional affiliates flew turboprop aircraft via
code sharing
agreements to 39 more airports.
History
[
edit
]
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.
[6]
As a child, he loved airplanes and often used his allowance to take flying lessons. He took
pre-med
classes at the
University of Arizona
.
[3]
[6]
At the same time, he worked as a part-time
flight instructor
.
Foundation
[
edit
]
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
Wilmington, North Carolina
, northwest to
Cincinnati, Ohio
, with intermediate stops. All flights were on
Douglas DC-3s
.
Growth
[
edit
]
Revenue passenger traffic, in millions of passenger-miles (scheduled flights only)
[7]
Year
|
Pax-Miles
|
1951
|
44
|
1955
|
69
|
1960
|
94
|
1965
|
287
|
1970
|
745
|
1975
|
1061
|
1980
|
2363
|
1985
|
8164
|
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
[
edit
]
Piedmont's first jet flights took off in March 1967: 92-seat
Boeing 727-100s
on such routes as Atlanta - Asheville - Winston-Salem - Roanoke - New York
LaGuardia Airport
.
Boeing 737-200s
arrived in 1968; six 727-100s were added from 1977, and in June 1981 the airline added the
Boeing 727-200
. Piedmont's fleet was all-turbine after the last Martin 4-0-4 piston powered flights in 1972 and all-jet after the last NAMC YS-11 turboprop flights in 1982 (one 727-100 that Piedmont bought from
Northwest Orient Airlines
was the aircraft hijacked by
D. B. Cooper
).
Fokker F28 Fellowship
jets were added to the fleet as well as
Boeing 737-300s
,
737-400s
and
767-200ERs
.
Route expansion
[
edit
]
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
[
edit
]
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
Baltimore/Washington International Airport
;
James M. Cox Dayton International Airport
in
Dayton, Ohio
; and
Syracuse Hancock International Airport
in
Syracuse, New York
. Non-stop flights from Charlotte to the
West Coast
began in 1984 on
Boeing 727-200s.
These were Piedmont's first jets with a first-class section. New
Boeing 767-200ERs
(ER for "Extended Range"), the airline's only wide-body jet, flew nonstop Charlotte to
London Gatwick Airport
beginning in 1987. The 767 also flew nonstop Charlotte-Los Angeles.
[15]
Shortly before it was acquired by USAir, Piedmont was the first airline to announce fleet-wide adoption of the
Traffic Collision Avoidance System
(TCAS).
[1]
Commuter and regional airline affiliates
[
edit
]
Several commuter and regional airline affiliates provided passenger feed for Piedmont via
code sharing
agreements, including
Britt Airways
,
Brockway Air
,
CCAir
,
Henson Airlines
and
Jetstream International Airlines
.
[16]
These operations were identified by several different names including Piedmont Commuter System, Piedmont Shuttle Link and The Piedmont Regional Airline.
[17]
Turboprop aircraft operated by these airlines included the
Beechcraft 99
,
Beechcraft 1900C
,
British Aerospace
BAe Jetstream 31
,
de Havilland Canada DHC-7 Dash 7
,
de Havilland Canada DHC-8 Dash 8
,
Fokker F-27
-600,
Saab 340
,
Short 330
and
Short 360
.
[18]
Absorption into USAir
[
edit
]
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.
Piedmont Airlines
(formerly
Henson Airlines
) still exists as a brand within American Airlines, doing business as
American Eagle
.
Historical fleet
[
edit
]
Accidents
[
edit
]
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
Flight 22
, a
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
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
"World Airline Directory."
Flight International
. April 1, 1989.
113
.
[
dead link
]
- ^
GmbH, Emporis.
"One Piedmont Plaza, Winston-Salem - 207116 - EMPORIS"
.
www.emporis.com
. Archived from
the original
on July 31, 2012
. Retrieved
26 January
2018
.
- ^
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
.
- ^
"Piedmont Aviation Employee Newsletter Archives on DigitalNC.org"
. Retrieved
23 January
2013
.
- ^
"JetPiedmont.com, website of the Piedmont Aviation Historical Society"
. Retrieved
23 January
2013
.
- ^
a
b
"JetPiedmont – Salute to T.H. Davis"
.
www.jetpiedmont.com
. Retrieved
26 January
2018
.
- ^
Handbook of Airline Statistics
(biannual CAB publication) and
Air Carrier Traffic Statistics
- ^
Davies says YS11 flights started in 1969, which must be a typo.
- ^
Moody's Transportation Manual 1964
- ^
http://www.departedflights.com/
,
[
dead link
]
April 29, 1979; Jan. 15, 1980; June 1, 1982, Piedmont route maps
- ^
http://www.departedflights.com
,
[
dead link
]
June 1, 1984; Nov. 1, 1984; July 1, 1985; June 1, 1986; June 15, 1987, Piedmont route maps
- ^
http://www.departedflights.com
,
[
dead link
]
June 1, 1988, Piedmont route map
- ^
a
b
http://www.departedflights.com
,
[
dead link
]
June 1, 1989, Piedmont route map
- ^
http://www.departedflights.com
,
[
dead link
]
Sept. 1, 1984 Empire route map
- ^
http://www.airliners.net
, photos of Piedmont 767-200 at LAX
- ^
http://www.departedflights.com
, June 1, 1986 & June 1, 1989 Piedmont Airlines system route maps
- ^
http://www.departedflights.com
, June 1, 1988 Piedmont Airlines system route map
- ^
http://www.airliners.net
, photos of Piedmont Commuter and Piedmont Regional aircraft
- ^
National Transportation Safety Board. Aircraft Accident Report AAR69-06, August 21, 1969.
[1]
[usurped]
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]
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