Capitol Air

This article is about the mid-20th century North American airline. For airlines with similar names, see Capital Airlines (disambiguation).
Capitol Air
IATA
CL		 ICAO
 Callsign
Founded 1946
Hubs John F. Kennedy International Airport, Brussels, Belgium and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Destinations Los Angeles (LAX), Chicago O'Hare (ORD), Brussels (BRU), Frankfurt (FRA), Paris, France (LBG) Aguadilla (BQN), San Juan (SJU) and Puerto Plata (POP)
A Boeing 727-200 of Capitol Air.

Capitol Air, originally founded as Capitol Airways in 1946, and then renamed Capitol International Airways in 1967,[1] was a charter airline from the United States, which was operational from 1946 to 1984.[2] It was founded by former Army Air Corps pilots, Jesse Stallings, Richmond McGinnis, and Francis Roach, following the end of World War II. The European Director of Operations was Chuck Carr, the Director France Michel Lelièvre and the LBG Airport Manager, P. Landelle. Gatwick Ops was the European Office. In the late 1970s, Capitol Air became a scheduled carrier following the passage of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. The airline was incorporated in Delaware but headquartered in Smyrna, Tennessee.

Capitol Air maintained a large presence in the eastern United States and Europe.[3][4] Its hubs were John F. Kennedy International Airport Hangar 11 in New York City, Brussels, Belgium and San Juan, Puerto Rico. From New York/JFK Capitol Air served Los Angeles (LAX), Chicago O'Hare (ORD), Brussels (BRU), Frankfurt (FRA), Paris, France (LBG) Aguadilla (BQN), San Juan (SJU) and Puerto Plata (POP). From San Juan its served Miami, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and Santo Domingo. Even though it went scheduled, charters were still a big part of its operations. Many of the charters operated in/out of San Juan were for Canadian tour operators that needed the air service in conjunction with cruises that departed San Juan every Saturday.

Capitol Air also operated many charter flights for the United States military. One major trunk route in the mid-1970s connected Rhein-Main Air Base (Frankfurt), Germany to Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina with a refueling stop at Bradley Air National Guard Base (co-located with Bradley International Airport) in Windsor Locks, Connecticut.

Capitol Air declared bankruptcy in the mid-1980s after George Batchelor, now Capitol's owner, had largely dismantled the airline in favor of his newly acquired venture, Arrow Air, another formerly all-charter airline working toward becoming a scheduled airline.

Early history

Capitol Airways was founded on June 11, 1946[1] by Jesse F. Stallings (1909-1979), an airline captain, and Richmond Mclnnis, his associate. During the first few years, Capitol Airways operated a flight school and aircraft sales agency at Cumberland Field in Nashville, Tennessee.

Capitol Airways Constellation at Shannon Airport in 1961

By the early 1950s Capitol operated a fleet of transport planes with DC-3s and Lockheed Lodestars. Capitol Airways started to haul priority freight for the U.S. Air Force in 1954. By 1956, Capitol was operating a fleet of more than twenty C-46 transport planes, and had became a primary civilian carrier for the military's Logistic Air Support (LOGAIR) program. Capitol then entered the international charter flight market, flying with a fleet of Lockheed Constellations. By the late 1950s, Capitol moved all its flight operations to Wilmington, Delaware at New Castle Airport.[5]

In 1963 Capitol Airways was one of the first charter airlines to operate jet aircraft, when they took delivery of a new DC-8. In 1964, their DC-8 set a world record in commercial aviation, and flew non-stop from Tokyo, Japan to Wilmington, Delaware in 12 hours 25 minutes. Throughout the 1960s, civilian and military air cargo operations increased.

In 1967 Capitol added "International" to its name and was operating six "straight" DC-8s and three "stretch" version jets, along with their fleet of propeller airplanes. In 1971 Capitol International Airways moved to Smyrna, Tennessee,[5] at Sewart Air Force Base. Capitol remained strong as a military contract carrier.

Aircraft fleet

The airline started operations with the late model square tailed Super-DC3.[6] The airline also operated the Lockheed Constellation. In 1968, the airline leased a DC-8-F to Air Congo.[7] In later years the airline used primarily McDonnell Douglas DC-8 jets, but around 1980 brought DC-10 equipment into its fleet.These aircraft were all leased from International Air Leases in Miami, owned by George Batchelor and also the final owner of Capitol Air at the time of its dissolution.

Incidents

During the early 1980s, one of Capitol Air's DC-8 was hijacked and diverted to Cuba.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Planespotters.net history of Capitol Airways
  2. ↑ Information about Capitol Airways at the Aviation Safety Network
  3. ↑ Capitol Air 1979 timetable, at timetableimages.com
  4. ↑ Capitol Airways 1981 timetable and route map, at departedflights.com
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Aerodacious history of Capitol Airways
  6. ↑ Harold Mills. Hangar Sweepings: Reflections of an Airport Bum. p. 21.
  7. ↑ Ben R. Guttery. Encyclopedia of African Airlines. p. 39.

External links