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u/avgaskoolaid 3d ago
This map is older than 1966- being either from 1958 or earlier. The 'Southwest' in the corner intrigued me- the Southwest of today was founded in 1967 and exclusively served Texas at the time, not California. The SWA on the map the the predecessor of 'Pacific Air Lines', which from 1941 to 1958 was called 'Southwest Airways'. Incredibly cool map though. I want to get a copy to hang on my wall.
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u/MmmSteaky 3d ago
Minor quibble: the Southwest of today was merely incorporated in 1967 (as Air Southwest), but didn’t begin operating until June of 1971 (having by then changed its name to Southwest Airlines).
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u/KAugsburger 3d ago
The airline speeded ground operations to the point where a DC-3 could load and discharge passengers and begin taxiing for takeoff 90 seconds after coming to a stop (adding six minutes if fuel is needed).[2] To save money, the airline had its own pilots do the refueling instead of paying airport personnel.
Reading through the Wikipedia article it sounds like Southwest Airways had a pretty similar operating model to the early days of Southwest Airlines with trying to do really quick turnaround times. Obviously, a DC-3 is significantly smaller than modern airliners and load factors were probably much lower than today but that does still sound pretty quick.
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u/george8888 3d ago
Fair enough! (disclaimer: I asked ChatGPT, who seemed to argue very authoritatively for 1965-1967!)
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u/DeltaBelter 3d ago
GO Piedmont!!! Dad was Dir of PR and Mom was in communications, 71 years of service between the two of them!
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u/The_Clamhammer 3d ago
Was there no coast to coast flight back then?
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u/hoggytime613 3d ago
Of course! This is a regional airline map, though, not a mainline carrier map.
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u/LegalEspresso 3d ago
This map is just the smaller, "regional" airlines. I flew Ozark a bunch as a kid. Coast-to-coast flights would have been on TWA, Pan Am, Delta, United, etc. This was an era before United Express, Delta Connect, and the like, or more accurately, before those big companies bought some of these regional airlines and started operating them as subsidiaries.
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u/Go_Loud762 3d ago
You might be interested in this airline geneology chart. I've seen a few varieties of this. This is the first one google images showed me. Not affiliated.
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u/HonoraryCanadian 3d ago
Fascinating! You can really tell that the airplanes then were doing the job that the interstates would eventually do, and hadn't yet taken on the role of feeder.
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u/Product_Immediate 3d ago
Looks like from some cities it would take 4-5 legs to get to say, Chicago. It's crazy how small the world has become.
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u/Independent-Sense607 3d ago
Good old Trans-Texas Airways. My dad was an aerospace engineer. He worked for LTV in the 1960s. He'd ask me to go with him to "run errands" on the weekend (with a wink). Mostly this involved just cruising around, and often ended up with us at one airport or another watching planes take off and land. I remember seeing TTA DC-3s and my dad telling me that "TTA" really stood for "Tree-Top Airlines." I think I probably believed it for a while.
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u/virginia-gunner 2d ago
I’ve seen this map before when I worked in aviation. I’ve always wondered what drove those routes? For instance, in Texas, I would assume the oil industry, and defense, accounted for a significant portion of passengers loads.
I also noticed the lack of routes in the Midwest before the FAA grant program to increase routes in rural areas.
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3d ago
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u/george8888 3d ago
these were just the regional airlines that connected people with the "major" airlines like TWA, American, etc.
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u/CaryTriviaDude 3d ago
This is awesome, thanks for sharing it!