 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Piedmont Airlines" 1948–1989 – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(February 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
 | |||||||
| |||||||
| Founded | January 1, 1948 (1948-01-01) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commenced operations | February 20, 1948 (1948-02-20) | ||||||
| Ceased operations | August 5, 1989 (1989-08-05) (merged intoUSAir) | ||||||
| Hubs | |||||||
| Secondary hubs | |||||||
| Subsidiaries | Piedmont Regional Airlines | ||||||
| Parent company | US Airways Group | ||||||
| Headquarters | One Piedmont Plaza Winston-Salem,North Carolina,U.S. | ||||||
| Key people | William R. Howard (CEO) | ||||||
| Founder | Thomas Henry Davis | ||||||
Piedmont Airlines was alocal service carrier, a scheduled airline in the United States that operated from 1948 until it merged withUSAir in 1989. Its headquarters were at One Piedmont Plaza inWinston-Salem, North Carolina, a building that is now part ofWake 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 viacode sharing agreements to 39 more airports.
The company that would become Piedmont Airlines was founded byThomas Henry Davis (March 15, 1918 – April 22, 1999[3]) inWinston-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, fromWilmington, North Carolina, toCincinnati, 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 tookpre-med classes at theUniversity of Arizona.[3][6] At the same time, he worked as a part-timeflight instructor.
Like most airlines beforederegulation, 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, andFlorence, South Carolina;Roanoke, Virginia, andAsheville, North Carolina;Lynchburg, Virginia, and New York City'sLaGuardia Airport; Chicago'sO'Hare International Airport andBristol/Kingsport/Johnson City, Tennessee; and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to Lynchburg, Virginia.
Its early routes stretched fromWilmington, North Carolina, northwest toCincinnati, Ohio, with intermediate stops. All flights were onDouglas DC-3s.
Piedmont started withDouglas DC-3s; it addedFairchild F-27s in late 1958 andMartin 4-0-4s at the beginning of 1962. FH-227B flights started (and F27 flights ended) in 1967 andNAMC 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]
Piedmont's first jet flights took off in March 1967: 92-seatBoeing 727-100s on such routes as Atlanta - Asheville - Winston-Salem - Roanoke - New YorkLaGuardia Airport.Boeing 737-200s arrived in 1968; six 727-100s were added from 1977, and in June 1981 the airline added theBoeing 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 fromNorthwest Orient Airlines was the aircraft hijacked byD. B. Cooper).Fokker F28 Fellowship jets were added to the fleet as well asBoeing 737-300s,737-400s and767-200ERs.
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 theEmpire 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]
After deregulation in the late 1970s the airline grew rapidly and developed a hub atCharlotte/Douglas International Airport inCharlotte, North Carolina. Piedmont boughtEmpire Airlines, based inUtica, New York, in 1985 which brought moreFokker 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 includedBaltimore/Washington International Airport;James M. Cox Dayton International Airport inDayton, Ohio; andSyracuse Hancock International Airport inSyracuse, New York. Non-stop flights from Charlotte to theWest Coast began in 1984 onBoeing 727-200s. These were Piedmont's first jets with a first-class section. NewBoeing 767-200ERs (ER for "Extended Range"), the airline's only wide-body jet, flew nonstop Charlotte toLondon 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 theTraffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS).[1]
Several commuter and regional airline affiliates provided passenger feed for Piedmont viacode sharing agreements, includingBritt Airways,Brockway Air,CCAir,Henson Airlines andJetstream 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 theBeechcraft 99,Beechcraft 1900C,British AerospaceBAe Jetstream 31,de Havilland Canada DHC-7 Dash 7,de Havilland Canada DHC-8 Dash 8,Fokker F-27-600,Saab 340,Short 330 andShort 360.[18]
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 byUSAir (formerlyAllegheny Airlines); the combination became one of the East Coast's largest airlines. USAir later changed its name toUS Airways, which merged withAmerica West Airlines on November 4, 2007. US Airways merged withAmerican 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 (formerlyHenson Airlines) still exists as a brand within American Airlines, doing business asAmerican Eagle.
On October 30, 1959, Piedmont suffered its first crash whenFlight 349 slammed into Bucks Elbow Mountain nearCharlottesville, Virginia due to a navigational error, whose cause remains in dispute. Twenty-six of the 27 people on board theDouglas DC-3 perished.
On July 19, 1967, Piedmont suffered another fatal accident whenFlight 22, aBoeing 727-100, collided with aCessna 310 overHendersonville, North Carolina. TheNational 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 altitude, slightly left wing down. TheFairchild-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. TheNational 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.[20]
Oneworld member | |||||||
| Mergers and acquisitions |
| ||||||
| Facilities | |||||||
| Programs | |||||||
| Brands | |||||||
| Accidents and incidents |
| ||||||
| People | |||||||
| Organizations |
| ||||||
| Related | |||||||
