1967). SASR is established in 1964 to provide scheduled passenger and cargo services around the Ryukyus Islands in place of a charter operation maintained for some years by Civil Air Transport (CAT), a proprietary subsidiary of the Pacific Corporation, a front organization for the U. S. Central Intelligence Agency. Employing 2 each Curtiss C-46s and Beech 18s, later in the markings of Air America, SASR undertakes flights inking Minami Daito with Yonaguni via Haha, Kumejima, Miyako, and Ishigaki.
Operations continue apace in 1965-1966 and the service is taken over by All Nippon Airways Company, Ltd. (ANA) in July 1967.
SCHEDULED SKYWAYS: United States (1953-1972). After his previous enterprise, South Central Air Transport (SCAT-1), is closed down in the fall of 1947, Raymond J. “Ray” Ellis, owner of the FBO Fayetteville Flying Service, based at Fayetteville, Arkansas, returns to on-demand charters, flown with Cessna 170s and 195s.
In the fall of 1949, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville begins an evening program at Little Rock, employing professors from the Fayetteville campus. To get the teachers there and back, Ray Ellis is contracted by the university to fly them in “regular charters” during the school year. These flights, along with on-demand services, continue through the remainder of the decade and into the early years of the next.
When word of the commuter operation spreads, Ellis agrees to provide frequencies for passengers other than those connected with UA. A new FFS subsidiary, Scheduled Skyways, equipped with a single Cessna 195, is organized by the FBO owner at Fayetteville on September 1, 1953.
Within days, what will become known as the nation’s third oldest commuter, after San Juan Airlines and PBA (Provincetown-Boston Airlines), launches thrice-daily roundtrip shuttle service to Little Rock. A total of 838 passengers are carried during the remainder of the year, a number that grows to 2,536 in 1954, the first full year of scheduled frequencies.
Central Airlines begins service to Fayetteville in 1955 and its arrival helps to boost enplanements to 2,891. The first Piper PA-23 Apache is placed into service in 1958. Few changes in fleet or operations are made during the next decade.
During these years, the company grows modestly, increasing its fleet to include, beginning in 1968, several Piper PA-31-310 Navajos. Fort Smith, Harrison, Hot Springs, Jonesboro, and Texarkana join the route network. A route from Fayetteville to Tulsa is not profitable and it is suspended. Passenger bookings are 9,000 in 1969.
Operations continue apace in 1970-1971; however, when owner Ellis retires on October 1, 1972, the carrier is purchased by a group of Arkansas investors, reformed, and renamed Skyways.
World History
