Western Airlines

Western Airlines (IATA: WA, ICAO: WAL, Call sign: Western) was a large airline based in California, with operations throughout the Western United States, and hubs at Los Angeles International Airport, Salt Lake City International Airport, and the former Stapleton International Airport in Denver. Before it merged with Delta Air Lines it was headquartered near Los Angeles International Airport in the Westchester neighborhood of Los Angeles.^[1]

History

Western Air Express

In 1925, the United States Postal Service began to give airlines contracts to carry air mail throughout the country. Western Airlines first incorporated in 1925 as Western Air Express by Harris Hanshue. It applied for, and was awarded, the 650-mile long Contract Air Mail Route #4 (CAM-4) from Salt Lake City, Utah to Los Angeles. In April 1926, Western's first flight took place with a Douglas M-2 airplane. It began offering passenger services a month later, when the first commercial passenger flight took place at Woodward Field. Ben F. Redman (then president of the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce) and J.A. Tomlinson perched atop U.S. mail sacks and flew with pilot C.N. "Jimmy" James on his regular eight-hour mail delivery flight to Los Angeles.

Transcontinental & Western Airlines

The company reincorporated in 1928 as Western Air Express Corp. Then, in 1930, purchased Standard Airlines, subsidiary of Aero Corp. of Ca. founded in 1926 by Paul E. Richter, Jack Frye and Walter Hamilton. WAE with Fokker aircraft merged with Transcontinental Air Transport to form TWA.

General Air Lines

In 1934, Western Air Express was severed from TWA and briefly changed its name to General Air Lines, returning to the name Western Air Express after several months.

Western Airlines

In 1941 Western Air Express changed its name to Western Air Lines (WAL), which was later altered to Western Airlines.

After World War II, Western was awarded a route from Los Angeles to Denver via Las Vegas, but financial problems forced Western to sell the route and brand new DC-6 delivery positions to United Air Lines in 1947. Western later was awarded a route between Minneapolis and Salt Lake City via Casper, Wyoming, that allowed the airline to fly from the Twin Cities to the West Coast and allowed the airline to grow into a large regional airline, introducing service on the Douglas DC-6B, and Lockheed Electra. Their president was Terrell "Terry" Drinkwater. Drinkwater got into a dispute with the administration which severely hampered WAL's growth. Pressured in a famous phone call by president Eisenhower to "buy American made aircraft", Drinkwater reportedly have responded: "Mr. President, you run your country and let me run my airline!" For years after this the CAB would not award Western routes, while their competitors like United and American grew enormous. In 1967 WAL merged with Pacific Northern Airlines and in the late '60s pushed for an all-jet fleet, adding Boeing 707s, 727s and 737s to their fleet of Boeing 720s. In 1973, Western added nine McDonnell Douglas DC-10s, marketing their wide-body cabins as "DC-10 Spaceships".

Western was headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Their major hubs were LAX, Salt Lake City and Minneapolis/St Paul. Prior to airline deregulation, they had smaller hubs in Las Vegas, Nevada and Denver.^[2]

At their peak in the 1970s and 1980s Western flew to many cities across the Western United States, and to destinations in Mexico (Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco, Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo and Mazatlán), Alaska (Anchorage and Fairbanks), Hawaii (Honolulu, Maui and Kona), Hilo, and Canada (Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton). Western also maintained a large intrastate route structure within their home state of California, competing vigorously with Pacific Southwest Airlines and Air California.

In 1981, Western Airlines began international flights from Anchorage and Denver to London Gatwick Airport with a single DC-10-30. As they extended their network to airports on the east coast like Washington-Dulles, Newark and Boston, and Chicago, Western Airlines became a prominent sponsor of the Bob Barker television show The Price is Right, to make customers in the East more aware of their presence. In the late 1970s, Western Airlines (WAL) and Continental Airlines (CAL) agreed to merge. A dispute broke out over what to call the combined airline: Western-Continental or Continental-Western. An infamous coin toss occurred. Bob Six, the colorful founder of CAL, demanded that Continental be "tails" in deference to their marketing slogan "We Really Move Our Tail for You: Continental Airlines; the Proud Bird with the Golden Tail". The coin flip turned up "heads". Six was so disappointed he called the merger off.

Delta Air Lines

In the early 1980s, Air Florida tried to buy Western Airlines, but it was able to purchase only 16 percent of the airline's stock. Finally, on 9 September 1986 Western Airlines and Delta Air Lines, entered into an agreement and plan of merger. The merger agreement was approved by the United States Department of Transportation on December 11, 1986. On December 16, 1986, shareholder approval of the merger was conferred and Western Airlines became a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta. The Western brand was discontinued and the employee workforces were fully merged on 1 April 1987. Western's former Salt Lake City hub has become a major Delta hub, and Delta uses the Los Angeles International Airport as a major gateway.

Advertising

Western can also be noted for contributing to popular culture with its 1960s advertising slogan, "It's the oooooonly way to fly!" Spoken by the Wally Bird, an animated bird hitching a ride aboard the fuselage of a Western airliner, and voiced by veteran actor Shepard Menken, the phrase soon found its way into animated cartoons by Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera. Another famous advertising campaign by the airline centered on Star Trek icons William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. Some of their last TV ads, shortly before merging with Delta, featured actor/comedian Rodney Dangerfield.

During the 1970s, they promoted themselves as "the champagne airline" because champagne was offered free of charge to every adult passenger over 21 years old.^[3] (As an aside, actor Jim Backus uttered the "It's the only way to fly!" phrase while piloting an airplane, while somewhat inebriated, in the film It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.)

Western Airlines was also famous for its "Flying W" corporate identity and aircraft livery. Introduced in the mid-1970s, the unique color scheme featured a large red stylized "W" which fused into a red cheatline running the length of an all-white fuselage. This new corporate identity was the subject of litigation by Winnebago Industries, which contended the new "Flying W" was too similar to its own stylized "W" logo. In its final years, Western Airlines slightly modified its corporate identity by stripping the white fuselage to bare metal, while retaining the red "Flying W" (albeit with a dark blue shadow). This color scheme was also affectionately known as "Bud Lite" due to its resemblance to a popular beer's can design.

Western Airlines was a favorite first class carrier for Hollywood movie stars and frequently featured them in its on board magazine: "Western's World". Marilyn Monroe, and many silver screen actors were frequent flyers and the airline capitalized on it. Western had a famous flyer out of Seattle: Captain "Red" Dodge. Red worked previously as a helicopter test pilot, and got involved with CIA flying in his later years when he wasn't flying as Captain on the DC-10. The movie "Breakout" starring Charles Bronson was based on his daring airlift of a CIA operative out of the courtyard of a Mexican prison. The Mexican government tried to extradite Dodge back to face the jailbreak charges. Red became wealthy leasing brand new government storage units with unlimited government business but never again flew to Mexico.

The airline can, also, be found being promoted in The Carpenters promotional video for the track I Need To Be In Love, released in 1976. The video shows exterior footage of a DC-10 in takeoff and landing shots, respectively, as well as seating promotions for Western's FiftyFair seating product at the time, with shots of a cabin setting depicting what looks like business class of the DC-10.

Fleet

In 1986, Western Airlines' fleet consisted of the following types:^[4]

Fleet in 1970

In 1970, Western Airlines operated a total of 75 aircraft. Their fleet consisted of the following:^[5]

• 5 Boeing 707-320C

• 29 Boeing 720

• 6 Boeing 727-200

• 30 Boeing 737-200

• 5 Lockheed L-188 Electra

Incidents and accidents

• On December 15, 1936 - Seven died when a Western Air Express Boeing 247^[6] crashed just below Hardy Ridge on Lone Peak near Salt Lake City, Utah.^[7] The major parts of the aircraft were hurled over the ridge and fell over a thousand feet into a basin below.^[6]
• On January 12, 1937, Western Air Express Flight 7, a Boeing 247 flying from Salt Lake City to Burbank, crashed near Newhall, California, killing five of the 10 persons on board, including adventurer and documentary filmmaker Martin Johnson of Martin and Osa Johnson fame.
• On December 15, 1942, a Western Airlines transport crashed near Fairfield, Utah, approximately 50 miles south of Salt Lake City, Utah, on the way to Los Angeles, California. The plane took off at 1:05 a.m. and was reported missing approximately 15 minutes later. Of the 19 passengers and crew aboard, 17 died.^[8]
• On December 24, 1946, Western Air Lines Flight 44 crashed into the Laguna Mountains while descending towards San Diego. The CAB investigation determined that the pilot misjudged his position relative to the mountains, and flew too low to clear terrain.^[9][10]
• On the night of April 20, 1953, Western Air Lines Flight 636, flying the last leg of a Los Angeles-San Francisco-Oakland itinerary, descended below the prescribed minimum altitude of 500 feet and crashed into the waters of San Francisco Bay, killing eight of the ten people on board the Douglas DC-6 airliner.
• On June 3, 1972, Western Airlines Flight 701 from Los Angeles to Seattle was hijacked by Black Panthers Willie Roger Holder, a black Vietnam veteran, and Catherine Marie Kerkow. The hijackers claimed they had a bomb in an attache case and demanded $500,000. After allowing all 97 passengers to get off in San Francisco, they flew to Algeria where they were granted political asylum. Later, $488,000 of the ransom money was returned to US officials.
• On October 31, 1979, Western Airlines Flight 2605 crashed while landing at Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, killing 72.^[11] The crew landed the DC-10 on a closed runway and it impacted construction vehicles during the attempted go-around. The runway was operationally lighted so that the workers could see what they were doing. Another factor was that the Captain and Co-pilot were known to have been in a contentious dispute throughout their month of flying together. Vance Turner was supposed to be the First Officer on the trip, but he was removed at the last moment due to monthly hourly limits. This accident is taught as a CRM (Crew Resource Management) exercise in many airline training programs today.
• Western Airlines Flight 44 departed LAX on July 31, 1979. The flight landed at Buffalo, Wyoming instead of Sheridan, Wyoming. No injuries occurred and the only damage was to the tarmac at the airport which wasn't designed to support the weight of an airliner. The incident prompted the legal battle, and aviation landmark ruling of Ferguson v. NTSB^[12]

References

Bibliography

External links

• Historical timetables and route maps
• Historical timetable covers
• Salt Lake City International Airport
• Early Aviators
• "Right in the Middle of it All" History of the region
• History of Western Airlines and the planes it operated - archive.org copy of now-defunct page