“Ob-la-di, ob-la-da life goes on” well yeah, I guess so. Some day these columns will be full of good news again – things like new vertical takeoff electric urban transportation vehicles, free WiFi for all that works for the whole trip, the return of supersonic flight, exciting new private jet options, and stories of happy passengers loving new technology-enabled touch-point free ways to speed through airports on express walkways that actually work. But in the meantime –
I just read that Colombian carrier Avianca – at 101-years-old perhaps the world’s oldest airline and certainly one of the largest in Latin America – has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Miami Air International has gone into liquidation after 30 years of operations and everyone is holding their breath to see who’s going to be up next.
“Too big to fail” is an expression that has been used mostly in relation to financial institutions but has never really caught on in commercial aviation. Last week I listed some of the Canadian carriers that are no longer with us, this week let’s take a quick look at some other names on aviation tombstones none of which were too big.
Here’s an alphabetical (alarmingly long) list of some of the departed ones – and the year of their exit. There may be a few you didn’t even realize were gone:
• Air Berlin (Germany) – 2017
• Air Florida (US) – 1984
• Air Italy (Italy) – April 2020
• Aloha Airlines (US) – 2008
• Ansett Airlines (Australia) – 2001
• ATA (American Trans Air) Airlines (US) – 2008
• Braniff Airlines (US) – 1982
• British Caledonian Airways (UK) – 1988
• Dan-Air (UK) – 1992
• Eastern Airlines (US) – 1991
• Fawcett (Peru) – 1997
• Flybe (UK) – March 2020
• Flybmi (UK) – 2019
• Germania – (Germany) – 2019
• Jet Airways (India) -2019
• Kingfisher (India) -2012
• Laker Airways (UK) -1982
• Malev Airlines (Hungary) – 2012
• Mexicana (Mexico) – 2010
• Midway Airlines (US) -1991)
• Midwest Express (US) – 2010
• Monarch Airlines (UK) – 2017
• Pan American World Airways (US) – 1991
• Sabena (Belgium) – 2001
• Swissair (Switzerland) – 2002
• Thomas Cook Airlines (UK) -2019
• Tower Air (US) – 2000
• Trans World Airlines (US) – 2001
• Transaero (Russia) – 2015
• ValuJet (US) – 1997
• World Airways (US) -2014
• WOW Air – (Iceland) – 2019
By the time you get to the bottom of this list, it’s only fitting that it ends with a WOW!
The leading candidates for “too big to fail” status in this entire list are clearly Pan Am and TWA, both of which were for years perceived around the world as the United States’ de facto “flag carriers.”
Pan Am is arguably the most iconic brand in the relatively short history of aviation – Lindbergh’s first nonstop transatlantic flight wasn’t until 1927 – the same year that Pan Am was founded. Juan Trippe, the airline’s legendary leader, guided the carrier from its flying boat days all the way into the jet age. Trippe worked closely with Boeing to develop the 707 for which Pan Am was the launch customer – the first jet flight from New York to Paris took place in October 1958 with 111 passengers: Long-haul flight would never be the same again.
After further close cooperation with Boeing in its development, in 1970 PA was the first airline to fly the 747 ‘Jumbo Jet.’ That year Pan Am would carry 11 million passengers over 32 billion kilometers as it revolutionized air travel with its new wide-bodied jets.
Formed only three years after Pan Am in 1930, TWA offered the first ‘all-plane’ coast- to-coast service in the US. It took 36 hours and included an overnight stay in Kansas City. In 1939, TWA was acquired by the eccentric, aviation-obsessed, Howard Hughes, and he controlled it until the 1960’s. If Pan Am is remembered for its Boeing jets, TWA will always be associated with its wonderful Lockheed Super Constellations. They started non-stop transcontinental service with their ‘Connies’ in 1953 and later added New York to London service. If you want to see one today, visit the TWA Hotel at JFK and right next to the iconic old TWA Eero Saarinen terminal, you’ll find a fully restored Connie.
For years the two giants dominated the US domestic and international scene with a lot of overlap – TWA also became a 747 operator. They even came close to merging at one time in the early seventies but it never happened because of government antitrust concerns.
Sadly, – as with Air Florida and ValuJet – both carriers are now remembered more for two disastrous crashes than for their years of safely flying hundreds of millions of passengers around the world. Ironically similar, both incidents involved Boeing 747s and neither was put down to pilot error.
Over Lockerbie Scotland In December 1988 with 230 souls on board, Pan Am’s New York-bound flight was downed by a bomb that had been smuggled into the baggage hold. My family remembers it in painful detail as the farmland into which it crashed belonged to some very close friends. In July of 1996, TWA’s crash into New York’s Long Island Sound killing all 259 on board was the subject of much speculation as to missile attacks but was finally attributed to fumes in an empty fuel tank. The crashes didn’t help but both airlines eventually fell victim to years of ‘questionable’ management decisions.
Every one of the carrier’s listed has a host of stories to tell, thankfully few as tragic as Pan Am’s and TWA’s. I was involved with two carriers on the list in Laker Airways (another ten columns’ worth of wonderful Freddie stories there) and briefly at Air Florida in Miami before moving on to Virgin Atlantic – so here’s an aviation trivia tidbit, Air Florida was the first to use the name ‘Upper Class’ for its business class. They departed the scene at the same time that Virgin was arriving and so we kind of ‘borrowed it’.
Watch this space for additions to the lists. In many cases I suspect (like 9/11 before it) COVID is going to be a handy excuse for the failure of certain carriers that were on death’s door before the pandemic. However, as certain politicians are also very much aware, one should never let a good crisis go to waste.
Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da… Stay safe, stay sane and life WILL go on.