Ransome Airlines
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Ransome Airlines was a commuter airline which was headquartered at Northeast Philadelphia Airport (PNE) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded by Dawson Ransome, they began operations as an independent carrier in 1967. Ransome was particularly noted for operating the Dash 7, as it had a large fleet of the type, which was a new, relatively advanced, and large aircraft (seating 50) for a commuter airline to be operating at the time.
[edit] History
In 1973, Ransome started a partnership with Allegheny Airlines (USAir from 1979, and now US Airways) under the name Allegheny Commuter. Ransome operated a variety of point-to-point flights in the northeast as well as flights feeding into large Allegheny operations like that at Philadelphia International Airport. While Ransome and its successors operated under several different brands, they are probably best known as an Allegheny Commuter carrier, likely due to Allegheny being the pioneer in the field of developing code-share and co-branding relationships with commuter airlines, with the Allegheny/Ransome agreement being one of the earlier and more prominent examples of what was then still a novel idea.
In 1982, their relationship with USAir ended, and they began operating flights as Delta Connection, in partnership with Delta Air Lines, although they maintained much of their previous route system, while adding and changing some routes to better connect with the rest of the Delta system.
In 1986, they were purchased by Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) and began service under the new Pan Am Express brand on June 1 of that year. They soon dropped the Ransome name altogether, with the corporation being simply renamed Pan Am Express, Inc. While operating for both Pan Am, the former Ransome route structure was dramatically changed, with the new route structure dropping most of the point-to-point offerings and focusing on providing feeder service to Pan Am's extensive offerings of international flights, primarily at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), with another large operation at Miami International Airport and smaller operations at Los Angeles International Airport and Boston's Logan International Airport. Some of these new services introduced the airline to new geographical areas of the country, it having been previously confined to the northeast. The airline still retained functions such as its primary maintenance base at Northeast Philadelphia Airport, along with a small level of service.
When Pan Am collapsed in 1991, Pan Am Express was purchased by Trans World Airlines (TWA) and provided feeder service to them under the Trans World Express (TWE) brand, with the corporate name changing to Trans World Express, Inc. Under TWA, those Trans World Express services provided by TWE were exclusively focused at JFK. On November 6, 1995, TWA shut down its TWE division, with all Trans World Express service after that date being subcontracted to outside airlines, thus bringing an end to the last airline that could trace some of its routes back to Ransome. The company had retained its PNE maintenance base and service on the PNE-JFK route until the very last day; the contracted airlines replacing many of the TWE feeder routes at JFK decided not to serve PNE, and, as of 2006, PNE has yet to see another airline provide any scheduled commercial service there.
[edit] Aircraft
- Volpar Beech 18
- Nord 262
- Mohawk 298
- deHavilland Dash 7
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