National Airlines (NA)

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National Airlines
IATA
NA		 ICAO
NAL		 Callsign
NATIONAL
Founded 1934
Ceased operations 1980 (merged into Pan American)
Hubs Miami International Airport
John F Kennedy International Airport
Fleet size 13 (1934)
Destinations {{{destinations}}}
Headquarters Miami, Florida
Key people George T. Baker (founder), succeeded by Louis "Bud" Maytag
This article is about one of the airlines that have shared this name. For other uses of the name, see National Airlines. For 'national airlines' see Flag carrier.

National Airlines (IATA: NA, ICAO: NAL, and Callsign: National) was founded in 1934 and was based in Miami, Florida.

Contents

[edit] History

Under the leadership of its president and founder, George T. Baker, it operated primarily within Florida, the Gulf Coast and the southeastern United States until 1944, when it gained authorization to operate the route between New York City and Miami, Florida. The airline was headquartered at St. Petersburg, FL Whitted Airport and Jacksonville before moving its home base to Miami.

Lucrative international service to Havana, Cuba, began in 1946, and was to continue until suspended in 1961.

The National Airlines route network expanded west to Houston, Texas and north to Boston, Massachusetts in the 1950s.

On November 10, 1958, National became the first airline to introduce domestic jet service in the United States, with a flight between Miami's international airport and Idlewild International Airport in New York City.

Routes from Florida to California via Houston, including the first non-stop transcontinental service from Miami, were added in 1961 in the CAB's Southern Tier service case.

In 1964, National became the first exclusively jet powered service in the United States, and by 1970 became the third U.S. transatlantic passenger carrier with the inauguration of daily nonstop round-trip service between Miami and London, England.

In 1970, the company opened a terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport called the Sundrome, which is now occupied by JetBlue Airways. It was designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. By the late 1970s, National operated a large fleet of Boeing 727 and McDonnell Douglas DC-10 aircraft.

During its history, National was known by advertising slogans such as "The Buccanneer Route (1940s)", "Airline of the Stars (1950s-60s)," and, famously, its "Fly Me" campaign of the 1970s, where aircraft were given female names and flight attendants were featured in broadcast and print media campaigns. Some aircraft were named for celebrities, including Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis, in whose 1960 film "The Bellboy" both National and Miami Beach's Fountainbleau Hotel had featured roles.

Until losing the license in 1962, National also owned Miami television station and ABC affiliate, WPST-TV, Channel 10, (which for many years since has been the Washington Post owned WPLG-TV).

National Airlines was acquired by Pan American World Airways in 1980 and its operations were merged into those of the larger carrier. Pan Am continued to utilize the former National Miami maintenance base and headquarters building until the merged company ceased operations in December 1991.

[edit] Fleet

The history of the original National Airlines spanned nearly fifty years and during that time it operated a variety of different types of aircraft. In the postwar era, its fleet consisted of the:

[edit] Incidents

On February 11, 1952, a DC-6 crashed near Newark Airport, killing 29 out of 63 people on board. [1]

On January 6, 1960, a DC-6 enroute from New York to Miami was destroyed by a bomb near Bolivia, North Carolina, killing all 34 on board.[2]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

 This article or section needs to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please help improve this article with relevant internal links. (April 2008)

Banning, Eugene, edited by R.E.G. Davies (2001). Airlines of Pan American since 1927. Paladwr Press. ISBN 1-888962-17-8

Conrad, Barnaby (1999). Pan Am: An Aviation Legend. Emeryville, CA: Woodford Press. ISBN 0-942627-55-5.

Davies, R.E.G. (1972, revised August 1982). Airlines of the United States Since 1914, Putnam. ISBN 0-370-30942-1.

Davies, R.E.G., illustrated by Mike Machat (1987). Pan Am: An Airline And Its Aircraft. Orion. ISBN 0-517-56639-7

Gandt, Robert L. (1995). Skygods: The Fall of Pan Am. New York: Morrow. ISBN 0-688-04615-0.

The Clipper Heritage - Pan American World Airways 1927-1991 (2005). Pan American Historical Foundation. Retrieved April 2008.

Pan American World Airways, Inc., Records (6-26-1996). Otto G. Richter Library, University of Miami Archives. Retrieved April 2008.

Pan Am Wikipedia Article and Reference Notes.

[edit] External links