As my old boss Sir Richard Branson liked to quip, “The quickest way to become a millionaire is to start out as a billionaire and get into the airline business.”

The rampant speculation as to which airlines, big and small, may or may not survive the current global crisis set my mind wandering to all the airlines that have come and gone over the years. I have worked for several of them, notably Wardair, and Laker Airways and I’m now praying hard that Virgin Atlantic doesn’t join that list of the ‘desaparecidos.’

Here’s a list of (‘unlucky for some’) 13 of the Canadian brands to have exited the scene along with the year of their demise – which will likely have you dropping your jaw and asking, “Was it really that long ago?” So, in alphabetical order here goes:

• Canada 3000 -2001
• CanJet – 2001
• CP Air/Canadian Pacific Airlines/CAIL – (2001 ‘merger’ with AC)
• Eastern Provincial (EPA) -1987
• Jetsgo – 2005
• Nationair – 1993
• Nordair – 1987
• Pacific Western (PWA) – 1987 (became CAIL)
• Royal Airlines – 2001
• Quebecair – 1987
• Transair – 1979 (acquired by PWA)
• Wardair Canada -1989 (acquired by CAIL)
• Worldways – 2001

This doesn’t include the Trans-Canada Airlines brand that was renamed Air Canada in 1965 or AC’s confusing stable of names like Zip, Tango (which became a fare class) and Jazz (now part of Chorus). Air Transat should maybe be on the list but the fat lady in Ottawa hasn’t yet started singing about that one.

If there were “eight million stories in the Naked City” there is also a bunch of tales – some good, some not – to go with just about every one of the above listed carriers.

The worst of the ‘not so good’ category has to be Nationair and the 1991 accident involving one of its aircraft. The Mirabel QC based carrier had wet leased a Douglas DC-8 to Nigeria Airways and on a July 11th 1991 scheduled flight, it caught fire after takeoff from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and crashed while attempting to return to the airport, killing all 247 passengers and its 14 Canadian crewmembers. Two blown tires on takeoff were found to be the cause of the tragedy, which to this day remains the deadliest accident involving a Canadian airline.

One of the more fascinating stories on the list has to be that of Pacific Western Airlines – or just ‘P Dub’ as it was known. Largely forgotten today, PWA was a true pioneer: Founded in 1946 in Prince George as Central British Columbia Airlines, it adopted the Pacific Western name in 1953. In 1959 CP transferred 18 routes in Alberta and the North West Territories to PWA and the company was on its way.

The fast growing carrier introduced jet service in 1968 when it became the first Canadian carrier to take delivery of a Boeing 737-200. The HQ moved to Calgary in 1974 and the airline developed a reputation for innovation. One example was its ‘Chieftain Airbus’ branded Calgary-Edmonton shuttle where passengers deposited their bags on the ramp by the airplane and a ticket agent collected the fares on board. In 1964 PW became the first Canadian airline to offer ‘Inclusive Tour Charters’ with flights from YVR to Grand Cayman and Mexico. Later the same year using Boeing-707s they pioneered group charters across the Atlantic, mostly to the UK.

Fast forward to 1986 and PW with some 3,000 employees was the largest carrier in Western Canada carrying over three million passengers per annum. Then in 1987 the spider ate the horse. PWA Corp announced it was acquiring Canadian Pacific Airlines – that’s the former CP Air but by this time it had changed its name back to Canadian Pacific Airlines. Rather than simplify all this name game confusion by calling it something entirely different, PW renamed the whole thing Canadian Airlines International or CAIL as it quickly became known. My old alma mater, the once wonderful Wardair would soon also be dragged into the party, resulting in only two major airlines remaining in Canada: A state of affairs that historically has never seemed to be good news!

Needless to say, it didn’t last long this time either. In January 2001, having strayed from its roots as a successful domestic carrier to one planning to battle Air Canada on all fronts, the by then financially ailing CAIL was acquired by it only rival, Air Canada. As with almost every airline ‘merger’, this too became an instant nightmare with warring unions, seniority conflicts, flight delays, baggage problems etc. But sure enough, over time, everything just disappeared into AC.

So, let’s play “what if?” for a moment. What if, rather than cobbling together a dysfunctional patchwork quilt of carriers under the CAIL banner to do battle with the evil giant from Montreal, PW had instead chosen to stick to its knitting as an innovative, popular, domestic operator of Boeing 737s? Does a Calgary-based 737 operator remind you of any other airline? It should…

The inspiration for what would become WestJet came to Tim Morgan, Don Bell and Mark Hill in 1994. As Tim tells it, they saw that PW was losing its focus and at the same time noted the success of “cheap and cheerful” big box stores and 737-operator Southwest in the US. The trio was convinced there had to be an opportunity in Canada for something similar and they were right. With a fleet of three (ex-Canadian) 737-200s, the first WestJet flight took off on February 29th 1996. The rest, as they say, is history.

That said, I’m a great believer in history repeating itself and the path that WestJet has chosen to follow in recent years seems eerily similar to the one that PWA took when it began to lose the plot in the nineties. At WestJet the Southwest one-aircraft type playbook started to go out the window with Encore. Then came the wide-bodies, first the troubled 767s and now the, beautiful but expensive, 787 fleet with which they plan to morph into a clone of AC. Then you can throw Swoop, into the mix, which if you think about it, is precisely what WestJet was all about once upon a time – cheap and cheerful! And where have all the happy “WestJetters” gone? Ask CUPE maybe they can tell you.

Warren Buffet’s famous 2007 comment on airlines is more prescient than ever, “If a far-sighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville (Wright) down.” Something Warren almost did single handedly this week when he sold off his large stakes in four major carriers.

That ‘former airline’ list is surely going to get longer before this thing is over, and even if his airlines survive, Sir Richard is going certainly to have to come up with another funny line.

Stay safe – stay sane.