ELLIS AIR LINES: United States (1936-1962). Formed by Robert E. “Bob” Ellis at Ketchikan, initially as Ellis Air Transport, in July 1936, this southeastern Alaskan carrier begins service on a Bristol Bay fisheries contract in a WACO YKS-6 cabin floatplane. In late summer, regularly scheduled flights commence to Prince of Wales Island. In 1938, a rough hangar is set up, supported on logs.
Owner/chief pilot Ellis enters a copartnership arrangement with Alaska Coastal Airlines on May 27, 1939.
In January 1940, Ellis incorporates his company, one of the few in the world to operate exclusively from the water. Later, Gerald “Bud” Bod-ding is hired as the first pilot besides Ellis himself.
After Pearl Harbor is bombed by the Japanese on December 7, 1941, Ellis Air Lines is quickly downsized, as most of its fleet—2 WACOs, 1 Bellanca, and 1 Stinson—is sold to the U. S. Navy, for which Ellis now serves as a consultant. What remains of the Ketchikan operation is run on a very reduced schedule by Ray Renshaw.
CAB certification finally comes through on December 5, 1942.
Free from his USN responsibilities in September 1945, Ellis purchases a Grumman G-21 Goose in November and flies it to Ketchikan from Georgia. The remainder of the year is spent in modifying the aircraft and rebuilding the prewar service.
Early in 1946, the company is reformed and renamed Ellis Air Lines. Meanwhile, the Ellis and Alaska-Coastal operation receives federal approval to provide joint service on the Juneau-Ketchikan route.
Primarily amphibious operations continue apace during the remainder of the decade and into the 1950s, often in competition with the larger Alaska Coastal Airlines.
By 1955, Ellis employs 100 workers and operates a fleet of 13 aircraft, including 9 Geese. Larger destinations visited include Juneau, Wrangell, Petersburg, Sitka, Edna Bay, Annette, and Prince Rupert, in British Columbia. Flights are also made to many smaller island communities, on both a scheduled and nonscheduled basis.
The fleet of the small carrier in 1958 shows 13 G-21As and a single large landplane, a war surplus Curtiss C-46 Commando.
In 1959, a Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina is acquired.
A G-21A is destroyed in a bad water-landing at Cape Pole on March 29, 1960; all three aboard are hurt.
A G-21A with six aboard is badly damaged in a hard landing at Prince of Wales Island on October 24, 1961.
Following negotiations, Ellis is formally merged into Alaska Coastal Airlines on April 1, 1962.
The reborn company is known as Atlantic Coastal-Ellis Air Lines.
Bob Ellis will recall his airline’s activities in his memoirs, What. . . No Landing Field? (Haines, Alaska: Lynn Canal Publishing Co., 1969).
ELLIS AIR TAXI: P. O. Box 106, Glenallen, Alaska 99588, United States; Phone (907) 822-3368; Fax (907) 822-3368; Year Founded 1983. Ellis Air Taxi is established at Glenallen, Alaska, in the fall of 1983 to provide scheduled passenger and cargo services. Equipped with Cessna lightplanes, revenue flights commence in November over a circular route from Gulkana to Gulkana via McCarthy, May Creek, and Chisana.
Operations continue apace for the next 17 years. In 2000, President Harry L. Ellis operates a fleet that includes a Cessna 185, Cessna C-206, and a Piper PA-31-310 Navajo.
World History
