This short-haul commuter is established at New York City in the summer of 1929 to offer scheduled passenger flights to Asbury Park. Employing Bellanca CH-300 cabin monoplanes, the carrier inaugurates flights in July. Services stop at the end of September.
NEW YORK HELICOPTER CORPORATION: Republic Airport, Hangar B, CX9100, Farmington, New York 11735, United States; Phone (613) 777-3733; Fax (613) 777-5876; Http://www. nyhelicopter. com; Code HD; Year Founded 1980. Organized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Island Helicopter Corporation in August 1980, New York Helicopter, “The Airline to the Airlines,” inaugurates Aerospatiale SA-360C nine-passenger Dauphin helicopter flights on January 6, 1981 . This marks the beginning of the first regularly scheduled helicopter service in the area since the demise of New York Airways (2) in April 1979.
Original points served by President Reed Phillips’ 70-employee company include New York (JFK and LGA), Newark (EWR), and the East 34th Street Heliport. Company helicopters are banned from overflying Manhattan, with the exception of a single designated east-west corridor across the island’s middle above Central Park.
The shuttle’s seven French-built helicopters transport 41,000 passengers in 1981. Employing a combination of full fares and interline supported tariffs, over 50 daily flights are offered.
In 1982, following the introduction of 2 Sikorsky S-58ETs, traffic climbs 128.4% to 91,681. Cargo accelerates a spectacular 115.4% to 34,000 pounds.
Airline employment in 1983 stands at 110 and passenger boardings rise 38.4% to 126,848.
Twenty new hires are made in 1984 as service is extended the World Trade Center and Garden City, Long Island. A subsidiary of Island Helicopter Corporation, itself a part of Transleisure Corporation, which also owns National Helicopter Corporation, the East 34th St. Heliport FBO, New York Helicopter is not affected when the parent company files for Chapter XI bankruptcy in April.
Customer bookings swell to 130,000 during the year.
By early 1985, the helicopter carrier enjoys joint fare arrangements with 54 domestic and international airlines. The fleet now includes 3 S-58ETs and 7 SA-360Cs.
Enplanements are down to 123,875, but cargo is up to 67,000 pounds.
In October 1986, the company inaugurates hourly flights to and from the Eastern Air Lines Air Shuttle terminal at La Guardia Airport, linking it with the 34th St. Heliport in Manhattan.
Although service is also continued between New York’s 3 major airports, traffic is down once more for the 120-employee rotary-wing operator as bookings plunge 31.6% to 84,673 and freight drops 74.4% to 17,000 pounds.
The bad news continues in 1987 as enplanements decline another 43.2% to 48,753. The bottom falls out of the company’s freight haulage as poundage drops by 93.5% to just 1,000. Operations continue during the remainder of the decade and although not reported, the airline enjoys a competition with Trump Air, outliving the helicopter carrier of real estate tycoon Donald Trump.
As U. S. forces assemble overseas in Operation Desert Shield, a response to Iraq’s August 2, 1990 invasion of Kuwait, passenger bookings, responding to a threat of terrorism, go into a steep decline. In October, a scheduled roundtrip service is introduced between the East 34th Street Heliport and the terminal of Continental Airlines at Newark. Although the year’s record book shows 33,500 passengers accommodated, traffic all but disappears in January 1991, forcing abandonment of the New Jersey airport service in March. On the year, less than 20,000 passengers are flown.
During 1992, scheduled rotary-wing flights continue to be operated the 24 km. from the East 34th Street Heliport to New York (JFK).
Airline employment is 160 and enplanements climb to 22,760.
In the years that follow, President Michael D’Amato’s fleet comprises 4 Sikorsky S-58Ts, 2 Bell 206B JetRangers, 5 Bell 206L LongRangers, 1 Eurocopter A-Star 350, and an Aerospatiale TwinStar. The only sustained scheduled helicopter airline remaining in the U. S., it offers 13 weekday flights between JFK and Manhattan and 10 on weekends.
Abrief news item in the August 18, 1997 issue of Travel Weekly reads simply: “N. Y. Closes Island Helicopters.” Parent Transleisure now attempts to keep New York Helicopter Corporation alive.
Service is maintained without headline or incident in 1998-2000. An on-demand 7 a. m. to 8 p. m. weekday airport shuttle continues to be offered to and between Republic Airport, JFK, La Guardia, Newark International, the East 34th Street Heliport, and the Wall Street Heliport (the latter two points in New York City). Reservations for these services are required two hours in advance of flights and may be made by phone or e-mail.
Additionally, a new service is introduced between New York City’s heliports and the Hamptons. Made via reservations, up to three passengers may Share-a-Ride on Thursdays and Fridays to East Hampton Airport ($525 per person), West Hampton Airport ($500), or Dune Road Heliport at South Hampton ($500).
NEW YORK-NEWPORT AIR SERVICE: United States (19221923). NYNAS is established at New York in late spring 1922 to offer a fast and comfortable mode of transport to the Rhode Island’s vacation city, Newport. Equipped with three four-passenger Loening 23L Air Yachts, the company inaugurates service during the summer, charging $30 per head for the commuter flight. The service is well patronized by New York businessmen who enjoy reaching their summer homes in 1 1/2-hour Friday night flights.
A second season starts well in June 1923, but ends tragically on July
20. An Air Yacht, piloted by H. H. Thorburn with two passengers, crashes while landing in Newport Harbor and flips over. H. Carey Morgan, a member of a prominent family, is injured and dies of blood poisoning four days later. The adverse publicity and subsequent legal actions cause the carrier to shut its doors.
NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA AND WASHINGTON AIRWAY (THE LUDINGTON LINE): United States (1930-1933). In the spring of 1930, former Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT) officials Paul F. Collins and Eugene L. Vidal (father of novelist Gore Vidal), who have developed the idea of a Washington to Philadelphia to New York air shuttle, approach wealthy Philadelphia financier and airline enthusiast C. Townsend Ludington for backing. Ludington, whose name will serve as the organization’s alternative title and who, with his brother Nicholas, had founded the Camden Airport in 1937 and operated Cape Cod Airway the previous summer, readily agrees to contribute $250,000.
The New York, Philadelphia and Washington Airway, which will operate solely as a passenger carrier, is organized in early summer with Collins as general manager and Vidal as vice president-management. Six Stinson SM-6000 10-passenger Tri-Motors are ordered. Following delivery of the first three, they are employed to inaugurate service between New York (Newark Airport) and Washington, D. C. via Philadelphia (Camden Airport) and Baltimore on September 1. One-way fares are $14.70—roundtrip costs $23.75.
Through a program of rigorous cost control that companies 60 years later might envy, Collins seeks to reduce the average of airline operating costs from approximately $1.20 per hour to just 400. Among his requirements: trimotor taxiing on one engine instead of three; use of expensive fuel only for takeoff, with automobile gasoline employed for cruising; and the sale of advertising wherever possible in the Stinsons’ passenger cabins. Later in September, three more of the economical Stinsons are placed into service, allowing the carrier to offer 10 roundtrips per day between 8 a. m. and 7 p. m.
Meanwhile, Vice President-Management Vidal undertakes an advertising campaign designed to emphasize the advantages of these passen-gers-only flights. “Every Hour on the Hour, Your Watch is Your Timetable” becomes the marketing jingle. In cooperation with the Pennsylvania Railroad, the airline is allowed to sell tickets in the railway’s stations up and down the line. Vidal places a series of 24 huge billboards along the railroad’s New York-Washington corridor promoting the carrier. Each bears a picture of a Stinson and the phrase: “If you’d flown Ludington, you’d have been there!”
Two more trimotors are acquired in October and these are employed to offer vacation charter flights to Atlantic City. An affiliated company, Dixie Flying Services, begins flying from Greensboro, North Carolina, to Washington on November 6. A stop is added at Trenton on November 24 and a total of 15,000 passengers are carried by the end of the month. A profit of $8,073 is recorded for the year, probably the first ever earned by a U. S. airline devoted exclusively to the transport of customers without mail subsidy. Indeed, several sources claim the Ludington Line is the first unsubsidized airline in history to ever make a profit.
In the spring of 1931, Ludington and Vidal apply to the U. S. Post Office for an airmail contract (and subsidy), knowing that if their quest is fruitful, mail and express, when added to the popularity of the passenger service, will make the company an even larger success. Unfortunately for the carrier, its plans do not mesh with those of the government which, in the person of Postmaster Walter F. Brown, spurns the Luding-ton bid in July in favor of Eastern Air Transport (EAT), even though EAT’s bid is three times more. Eastern now also offers competition, employing its new Curtiss Condor Is.
Ludington counters when, on September 16, it places a 175-mph Lockheed Model 9 Orion into service, reducing its flight time between New York and Washington to 68 minutes. En route to Washington from Newark on November 5, the Orion, piloted by Floyd Cox with four passengers, crashes short of the field at Camden (five dead).
Operations are maintained, nevertheless, into 1932. In May, the affiliate Dixie Flying Service ceases operations. The same month, the carrier acquires three Consolidated Model 17A Fleetsters. Revenue flight operations stop at year’s end. During the previous 24 months, Ludington transported 124,000 passengers.
On January 23, 1933, multistop flights are inaugurated to Nashville via Roanoke and Knoxville, but given the company’s declining financial base, cannot be maintained. On February 15, Eastern Air Transport
(EAT) purchases the company and merges it within two weeks. Although the company disappears, seven of its Stinson SM-6000s and SM-6000Bs are repainted and kept in service for Eastern over the western routes. Collins and Vidal move on and Ludington, in the purchase price, recovers his original investment.
The story of how Ludington lost its 1931 mail bid is covered by Hearst reporter Fulton Lewis later in the spring and as a result, becomes a significant exhibit when the U. S. Senate Special Committee on Investigation of the Air Mail and Ocean Mail Contracts (Black Committee) begins hearings on September 28. Ludington retains his interest in aviation, turning to the manufacturing side; Vidal becomes chief of the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Air Commerce and later, a director of Northeast Airlines; Collins remains in the airline business and in 1983 publishes his memoirs, Tales of an Old Air-Faring Man (Stevens Point, Wisc.: Foundation Press). EAT, soon renamed Eastern Air Lines, resumes the air shuttle concept 28 years after taking over this pioneer.
NEW YORK, RIO AND BUENOS AIRES LINE (NYRBA): United States (1929-1930). World War I ace and onetime Latin American salesman for Bill Boeing and Pratt & Whitney, Ralph A. O’Neill establishes NYRBA at New York City (registering it in Delaware) on March 17, 1929 to offer scheduled air services to and from Argentina via the east coast of Latin America. Back on February 27, President O’Neill received the Argentine mail contract and now receives financial backing from a variety of U. S. industrialists, including James Rand, F. C. Munson, Lewis Pierson, William B. Mayo, and John K. Montgomery. The latter had established the original Pan American Airways (PAA) consumed by the Aviation Corporation of the Americas the year before.
Initial capitalization totals $8.5 million. One other noted investor is Reuben Fleet, owner of Consolidated Aircraft, who pledges to provide a fleet of 6 Model 16 Commodore flying boats (the order is later enlarged to 14). Six Ford 5-ATs are ordered in May and speeded along to delivery by Mayo, a Ford official/director.
Having persuaded another friend, U. S. Naval Aviation Chief Adm. William A. Moffett, to defer taking delivery of the first S-38, the type’s prototype is purchased by O’Neill from Igor Sikorsky in early June and christened Washington with a bottle of (illegal) New York champagne on June 9. It is employed by O’Neill and copilot L. C. Sullivan to undertake a survey flight from the 79th St. boat dock on the Hudson River at New York City to Buenos Aires between June 11 and July 13. At each stop, the president arranges for base or landing facilities, including establishment of Aeroporto Santos Dumont at Rio de Janeiro. Among the passengers on this flight, in addition to O’Neill’s secretary and future wife Jane Galbraith and his sister Priscilla, is noted explorer Richard Haliburton, who elects to remain behind following a refueling stop at the Devils Island penal colony in French Guiana.
The Ford 4-AT-11 is purchased from the New York Safety Airways on June 12. Christened Rio de la Plata, it will be followed into service by the new 5-AT-55 Santiago on June 26, which makes a proving and demonstration flight across the Andes Mountains on August 1.
The S-38 Washington inaugurates the company’s first scheduled service on August 21 from the Brazilian capital across the River Plate to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. By now, the company’s two Fords, two S-38Bs, and two Lockheed Air Expresses have reached Argentina, and the Santiago is employed on September 1 to open mail and passenger service from Buenos Aires to Santiago de Chile. The 7 hr. 15 min. flight-made possible by discovery of a pass that avoids the highest peaks —marks initiation the first transcontinental air route in South America and the beginning of twice-weekly, trans-Andean service. On
September 28, a second S-38, the Montevideo, arrives at Buenos Aires and is placed on the trans-River Plate service.
During the fall, government mail contracts are received from Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile. O’Neill receives Argentine permission to establish coastal bases on October 15 and on November 22, a concession to set up a subsidiary to operate solely in the country. Meanwhile, Mrs. Herbert Hoover christens the first Commodore flying boat, the Buenos Aires, at the Anacostia Navy Yard on October 2. With its fuselage painted in a cream color and its wings in coral, the new ship enters service on November 10. The same day, the second Commodore, fresh off the production line and reassembled inside of Madison Square Garden, is christened at a huge air show by Mrs. James J. “Jimmy” Walker, wife of the mayor of New York City. The name chosen is Rio de Janeiro and the brew employed in the ceremony is bootleg champagne. Crowds are then allowed to tour the largest aircraft at the exposition.
On November 27, Buenos Aires-Yacuiba, Bolivia, 5-AT flights begin. In Brazil on October 29, Ralph O’Neill establishes, at Brazilian insistence, a subsidiary to operate coastal and interior routes, NYRBA do Brazil, S. A. Four S-38Bs and the Lockheed Air Express floatplane Maraca are assigned to this partner. On November 29, a new route is launched from Buenos Aires to Yacuiba. The next day, S-38 service is started from Buenos Aires to the resort area of Mar del Plata. Meanwhile, a series of coastal bases are established, including one at Rio de Janeiro.
On December 4, William P. McCracken, former Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronautics, becomes NYRBA’s board chairman. A Buenos Aires-Rio de Janeiro S-38 frequency is initiated on December 23. The company is now organized into eight geographical divisions, each with its own personnel, shops, and assigned aircraft. In fact, only the southern division is fully operational, with a fleet comprising a Lockheed Air Express and four S-38Bs (the Porto Alegre, Bahia, Pernambuco, and Sao Luiz), three Fords, and the single Commodore Buenos Aires. Cash on hand totals $662,000 against net current obligations of $168,000.
The NYRBA do Brazil, S. A. subsidiary receives its government operating permits on January 24, 1930. Flights from Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires commence on February 7. Having built a number of bases and readied two more S-38Bs and two additional cream and coral-liveried Commodores, NYRBA inaugurates weekly Buenos Aires to Miami scheduled service on February 19. O’Neill persuades the city fathers of Miami to allow the conversion of the Dinner Key area into a flying boat base. Until a permanent facility can be built, a houseboat, purchased by O’Neill in Cuba and towed up, is employed as temporary headquarters.
The Commodore Rio de Janeiro, with O’Neill and Sullivan at the controls, flies up to Porto Alegre. From there its acquires a load of mail that is flown to Santiago de Cuba by six S-38s working in relays and making stops at Florianopolis, Paranagua, and Santos. At Santos, the S-38 Tampa is damaged so the mails must be quickly—and hazardously-forwarded by motor car and launch. The route is continued to Rio de Janeiro, Campos, Vitoria, Salvador, Maceio, Recife, Natal, Fortaleza, Belem, Montenegro, Paramaribo, Georgetown, Port of Spain, St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Thomas, San Juan, Santo Domingo, and Port au Prince. At Santiago de Cuba, the Commodore Cuba, again with O’Neill and Sullivan on the flight deck, takes over and arrives at Miami’s Dinner Key via Camagaey and Havana on February 25. There, the 800 pounds of Argentine mail, the first ever airmail from South America, is seized by U. S. postal authorities, who point out that O’Neill does not have a U. S. mail contract, and place it aboard aircraft of Eastern Air Transport for the run up to New York.
Regularly scheduled, daylight-only, eight-day, Miami-Argentina multistop services begin the next day. The southbound aircraft leaves at the same time as the northbound and at each overnight stop, pilots turn over their passengers and mail to new crews. There are only a few mishaps.
In one such accident, a Commodore piloted by Robin McGlohn catches fire in midair when a fuel line ruptures while on a flight down the coast of South America. McGlohn lands the flying boat, taxis the burning plane up to a river bank, and supervises the exit of its passengers through a rear hatch. The fire is, meanwhile, extinguished and the plane is salvaged. Later, Capt. Herman E. Swell lands a crippled Commodore with 18 passengers in a Cuban sugar cane field; no injuries are reported and the aircraft is disassembled, trucked to Santiago de Cuba, repaired, and put back into service.
Despite the technical success of the service, the carrier must either increase traffic or obtain a U. S. postal subsidy to survive the tremendous costs of its operation. Even in normal times, early passenger flight is expensive and only an insufficient number of travelers can be found in the face of world recession. The other alternative would appear to be U. S. government mail contract. While NYRBA lawyers argued for such a concession, covert, and occasionally overt, predatory moves are made against O’Neill’s enterprise by Pan American Airways (PAA), then seeking to become the dominant airline in South America.
When Pan American Airways (PAA) sympathizers in the Argentine government demand that NYRBA deliver the Miami mail in seven days instead of eight, O’Neill counters by employing swift Consolidated Model 17 Fleetster floatplanes along the Brazilian coast. Juan Trippe’s company, holding the U. S. FAM routes as far south as Paramaribo in Dutch Guiana, now attempts, with considerable success, to block NYRBA flights across the Caribbean islands to Miami. When, acting under company nonassistance orders, NYRBA ground personnel refuse to assist the crew of a downed Pan Am survey aircraft at Lake Montenegro between Cayenne and Belem, relations between the two airline pioneers become tense. The Ford 4-AT-11 Rio de la_Plata is destroyed in a March 2 crash at Cordoba, Argentina. The 5-AT-55 Santiago is badly damaged at Buenos Aires on April 8.
As the situation in the field deteriorates, Chairman McCracken begins a covert, and later overt, association with Juan Trippe of Pan American Airways (PAA). The two, without much difficulty, convince Postmaster Walter Fogler Brown that PAA/NYRBA competition will be costly for the Post Office. They obtain the official’s agreement not to award a foreign air mail route contract for the east coast of South America to any company other than Pan American Airways (PAA). Brown, perhaps less openly than in his required “shotgun marriage” of Western Air Express to Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT), for his part lets it be known that a merger of the two companies is all but mandatory to insure the award of the contract.
Although most flights out of Buenos Aires are booked, some with waiting lists, passenger revenues are small and the company faces lack of support from its own government. Despite the fact that it has raised some $6 million in investments since its incorporation ($1.4 million since January), NYRBA on May 31 has only $16,000 cash available against current obligations of $99,000. Unable to continue against the active opposition of Pan American Airways (PAA), the carrier now has only two options — sell out or go bankrupt.
On June 1, merger discussions are started between Trippe and NYRBA’s principal banker, Lewis Pierson. On July 1, President O’Neill reports that a total of 5,685 passengers have been flown since the first of the year. Rather than lose their entire investment, the board of directors, on August 19, votes to sell the operation to the Aviation Corporation of the Americas in a stock exchange worth $2 million. On September 15, NYRBA is handed over to Juan Trippe, along with its subsidiary and its fleet of S-38s, Commodores, Fords, and Fleetsters.
At the time of its amalgamation, NYRBA has a long line of commercial aviation “firsts” to its credit. It is the first airline to connect North and South America with express, mail, and passenger services; the first to establish an 80-hour-per-month flying limit for its pilots; the first to prohibit its flight crews from drinking alcohol a day before duty; the first to establish air-ground communications; and the first to regularly fly mail and passengers across the Andes.
Most NYRBA personnel are hired by Juan Trippe’s organization. An embittered O’Neill, who, after establishing an efficient organization, excellent bases, and well-negotiated Latin mail contracts, has seen his dream quashed, refuses a Pan American Airways (PAA) vice presidency and quits aviation. Years later, he will pen his autobiography, A Dream of Eagles (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1973).
NEW ZEALAND AERO TRANSPORT COMPANY, LTD.: New Zealand (1920-1922). Pioneer tourism executive Rudolph Wigley forms the New Zealand Aero Transport Company, Ltd. at Timaru in early 1920, equipping it with four government-surplus Avro 504Ks and three de Havilland DH 9s. On May 20, an Avro 504K, piloted by Enan Dickson, with Wigley and R. L. Banks as passengers, makes a Christchurch-Fairlie proving flight.
With the goal of catering to tourism in the lower half of the South Island with a service from Timaru to Mount Cook and the glacier region, the carrier is officially incorporated in August, with NZ?50,000 capital. Leonard Isitt and Tom Wilkes successfully fly a DH 9 over 14,200-ft. Mount Cook on September 12.
Bert Mercer, Maurice Buckley, Phil Fowler, Sidney Mallard, and Bill Parks are employed as the carrier’s first paid pilots in early 1921. The initial DH 9 service is flown Invercargill-Stewart Island by Mercer and Buckley on January 12 via Foveaux Strait. In the longest flight yet made in New Zealand and with Wigley as passenger, Phil Fowler and Bert Mercer, in two stops on October 24, fly a DH 9 from Invercargill-Auckland via Timaru in 8 hrs. 53 min.
The largest company of its kind in the nation, NZATC is unable to attract sufficient traffic to offset growing overhead expenses and is forced to cease trading in 1922.
NEW ZEALAND AIR CHARTER, LTD.: New Zealand (19901994). M. D. Brown establishes NZAC at Ardmore Airfield, Ardmore, in 1990 to offer passenger and cargo charter flights and sight-seeing tours. Revenue operations commence and continue with a fleet that includes 6 Grumman AAICs, 2 Cessna 152s, 2 Cessna 172s, and 1 Parte-navia P-68B.
Operations continue in 1991-1994.
NEW ZEALAND NATIONAL AIRWAYS CORPORATION, LTD. (NZNAC): New Zealand (1945-1978). In accordance with the 1945 New Zealand National Airways Act, the nation’s three major domestic carriers, Union Airways, Ltd., Air Travel, Ltd., and Cook Strait Airways, Ltd. are purchased and merged on December 7 into the NZNAC. The first chairman is Sir Leonard Isitt and initial capitalization is NZ?1.2 million.
Auckland-Kaitaia service via Whangara and Kaikoke are started in January 1946. With seven aircraft types, flights are also begun during the year to 14 other domestic points and toward the year’s end, responsibility is assumed for operations to a number of mandated territories.
Two Shorts S.25 Hythes (Sunderland IIIs) are acquired and christened Mataatua and Takituma; these take over the RNZAF Auckland-Fiji service on November 1, 1947. The same day, Douglas DC-3s begin flying from Auckland to Norfolk Island, Fiji, Tonga, Western Samoa, and the Cook Islands. The former Union Airways of New Zealand, Ltd. Lockheed Model 10A Kahu is lost in a crash into Tauranga Harbor on April 19, 1948. During the July-December quarters, DC-3s initiate service Auckland-Wellington via Rotorua and Hamilton. Lockheed L-18 flights begin in the Cook Strait area and an all-cargo DC-3 operation is launched from Auckland to Dunedin, Christchurch, and Wellington.
There are two more crashes during these months. En route from Palmerston North to Hamilton on October 24, a DC-3 with 13 aboard crashes atop Mount Ruapehu; there are no survivors. The Electra named Kaka crashes into Mt. Ruapehu on November 23 and, again, no one walks away.
The one-millionth passenger (cumulative) is boarded on January 16, 1949. The year’s enplanements total 204,000. Employing seven DC-3 freighters, a Cook Strait air-rail service is begun in 1950, only to be suspended in May 1951. Bookings for the two years are, respectively: 1951—230,000, and 1952—298,977.
With the exception of the S.25s and DC-3s, all earlier aircraft types, e. g., Lockheed L-10s, Lockheed L-18s, and de Havilland DH 89As, are retired in 1952 in favor of DC-3s and DH 114 Herons. Bookings soar to 305,155.
Wellington to Blenheim and Nelson DH 114 services are kicked off on March 22, 1953. Boardings advance to 360,434.
As the result of fuel exhaustion, a DC-3 with 2 crew and 26 passengers, suffers engine failure during a May 22, 1954 scheduled service and must make a forced landing, hitting a house, at Paraparaumu, New Zealand. All aboard the aircraft are safe, but three people are killed on the ground.
The year’s bookings swell to 379,079.
In November 1955, the Auckland-Norfolk Island route is transferred to Tasman Empire Airways, Ltd. (TEAL); the Mataatua and Takituma are retired. Enplanements are 412,907. Orders are placed in 1956 for Vickers Viscount 807s. Boardings rise to 469,616.
The first Viscount 807 is delivered to Auckland on December 31, 1957. Passenger traffic climbs to 496,160 travelers carried.
The new Viscount 807, christened City of Wellington, enters service on February 3, 1958, inaugurating a new and direct Auckland-Christchurch service. Enplanements for the year are 529,567.
In 1959, orders are placed for 8 Fokker F.27-100s. Bookings rise to 614,038.
The first F.27-100 is delivered to Wellington on December 12, 1960 and is christened Kuaka; it is employed on December 22 to inaugurate flights Christchurch-Auckland and Wellington and Auckland-Wellington direct. The year’s enplanements are 697,760.
NZNAC’s fleet in 1961 comprises 4 Viscount 807s, 6 Fokker F.27-100s, 2 DH 114a, and 26 DC-3s. The last 2 F.27-100s are delivered in 1962.
While en route from Auckland to Tauranga on July 3, 1963, a DC-3 with 3 crew and 20 passengers crashes into Mt. Ngatamahinerua; there are no survivors.
The year’s enplanements are 1,162,074.
An undisclosed net loss is suffered. Airline employment in 1964 is 2,223. The carrier pays airways and airport charges exceeding 9% of its operating revenues—the highest for any domestic airline anywhere in the world.
Passenger boardings rise 6% to 1,237,100 and revenues of NZ$15.1 million are earned.
The workforce totals 2,494 in 1965. The fleet now includes 16 DC-3s, 9 F.27-100s, and 4 Viscount 807s. Plans are made to replace the Douglas transports.
Passenger boardings decline to 922,346.
Four DC-3s are retired in 1966 as two additional F.27-100s join the fleet along with a fifth Viscount 807. Bookings rebound to 1,042,000.
The employee population in 1967 is 2,659. Orders are placed for three Boeing 737-219s and two additional F.27-100s arrive. The DC-3s are being phased out as the Fokkers take over their routes. Enplanements swell to 1,167,906.
Atotal of 141 new employees are hired in 1968. The first three B-737-219s are delivered in September and October and join the five Viscount 807s in linking the nation’s four major cities. The company’s 13 Fokkers are rescheduled to secondary routes and the 10 remaining DC-3s are restricted to feeder roles from small airports. Boardings accelerate to 1,202,000. Revenues of NZ$22.6 million are earned.
Airline employment in 1969 is 2,802. Enplanements total 1,403,648. The workforce is increased by 147 people in 1970.
Passenger boardings grow 6% to 1,493,242, and freight traffic is up 15%.
Two additional Boeing 737-219s join the fleet during 1971-1972 and 9 of the last 10 DC-3s are retired. Traffic figures are not available. In the fall of the latter year, the carrier acquires Safe Air Freight Express, Ltd., together with its two Hawker Siddeley Argosy 222s and five Bristol 170s.
In an effort to help promote tourism to New Zealand, the carrier in 1973 takes a 15% interest in Mount Cook and Southern Lakes Tourist
Company, Ltd. Two F.27-500s are purchased, two more B-737-200s, including an ex-Pacific Southwest Airlines Dash-214, are placed in service, and the last DC-3 is sold. The employee population is now 7,997.
Freight traffic balloons by 25% and customer bookings accelerate 18.8% to 1,908,000. A net NZ$1.1-million profit is reported.
Airline employment in 1974 is 3,156. At the first of the year, the carrier’s initial F.27-100 is sold to Gibraltar Airlines, Ltd. (2); it departs New Zealand almost 16 years to the day after its arrival.
Passenger boardings rise 11.6% to 2,128,000, and cargo is up 18%.
The workforce in 1975 is increased to 3,650. Two additional B-737-219s are placed in service and two F.27-500s are ordered.
Freight accelerates 11% and enplanements jump 2.8% to 2,188,000.
The employee population rises 1.8% in 1976 to 3,610. Plans are made for a computerized reservations system. Cargo climbs 16%, but passenger boardings dip 1.8% to 2,149,353.
The Carina reservations system becomes operational on April 27,
1977. Two F.27-500s join the fleet.
Passenger bookings reach 3,207,471, and a $NZ 3-million profit is earned.
NZNAC is taken over by and merged into Air New Zealand, Ltd., on April 1, 1978, the amalgamated carrier retaining the latter’s name.
NEW ZEALAND TRANSPORT AND TRAVEL, LTD. (NZTAT): New Zealand (1955-1967). Unhappy with the direction of his company, Amphibious Airways, Ltd. board member Harry English and several colleagues depart from the Invercargill-based charter carrier in January 1955 and establish a new company, NZTAT, at Auckland. Former Fiji Airways, Ltd. (2) chief pilot Fred Ladd is appointed general manager/chief pilot with English’s new entrant.
A Grumman G-44A Widgeon is acquired and overhauled by Tasman Empire Airways, Ltd. (TEAL); it is employed to inaugurate flights on June 19 to communities on Hauraki Gulf and provide scenic tour and charter services to any requested destination, including Great Barrier Island.
Although recession slows growth, business becomes successful at the beginning of the 1960s, allowing purchase of a second Widgeon. On August 1, 1961, Amphibious Airways, Ltd., together with its two Widgeons, is purchased and merged. Ladd directs that one of the new Widgeons move to Auckland, leaving one to service charter routes to Stewart Island and destinations in the Fjordland and Southland regions of the South Island.
In the next year, NZTAT moves into the Westland region of South Island and takes over Ritchie Air Service, Ltd. and Southern Scenic Air Services, Ltd. and its subsidiary, West Coast Airways, Ltd. These 1962 acquisitions also include the addition of several small landplanes.
General Manager Ladd is knighted by the Queen at Wellington on February 12, 1963. The next day, Capt. Ladd, MBE, flies Prince Philip from Nelson to Blenheim.
Also in the north, a fifth G-44A arrives in July, followed by a sixth in July 1964. In 1965-1966, the engines of all-company Widgeons are upgraded in rotation with Continental Lycomings, turning the planes into Super Widgeons.
On March 31, 1967, Capt. Ladd resigns to concentrate on the development of local helicopter services and, given a vacuum in leadership, Mount Cook Airlines, Ltd. steps in and purchases NZTAT.
NEWAIR: United States (1978-1985). Louis Pellegrino and the brothers Frank and Donald Santacroce establish the FBO/air charter operation New Haven Airways at New Haven, Connecticut, in 1962. Over the next 16 years, the company becomes a major nonscheduled operator, flying passenger charters to New York and Boston with a fleet that comes to include 4 Piper PA-31-350 Navajo Chieftains.
After the airlines are deregulated in October 1978, a subsidiary airline division, NewAir Flight, is formed to provide five-times-per-day scheduled commuter service within the state and on to Newark with the Pipers, which are borrowed from the charter operation. It will never earn a profit and will eventually be acquired by its chief rival, Pilgrim Airlines.
When Ransome Airlines pulls out of New Haven in 1979, NewAir Flight applies to the CAB for permission to fly two dormant nonstop Eastern Air Lines routes that will link its base with Washington, D. C. (DCA). Permission is granted. At the same time, when Ransome leaves Philadelphia, NewAir Flight launches Chieftain service to that city as well.
Enplanements are 11,738. The pattern for financial problems begins early on as the new entrant suffers a net loss of $83,000 for its first full year.
On the bright side, however, NewAir, as President Donald San-tacroce’s carrier is retitled on July 18, 1980, begins service to Baltimore (BWI) via Islip and to Sullivan County and the Catskills.
As a result, the carrier, with its fleet of 4 Navajo Chieftains, experiences a remarkable 273% increase in passenger boardings (30,849) over 1979. The net loss, however, accelerates to $46,000.
The 69-employee carrier begins flights to New York (JFK and LGA) during 1981. The service to La Guardia, La Guardia Express, is offered five times daily, beginning with a week of introductory 75-cent, oneway fares.
Traffic rises 65% as 47,207 passengers are transported. Unhappily, expenses of $2.5 million overwhelm revenues of $2.3 million, leaving a $248,842 operating loss and a major $344,467 net loss is experienced.
The workforce is increased by 24.4% in 1982 to 102. NewAir becomes an all-turboprop airline as two Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirantes and three de Havilland Canada DHC-6-200 Twin Otters are acquired to succeed the Chieftains. All but one of the company’s aircraft are also employed on New Haven Airways charters and are painted with the FBO’s titles.
A second Connecticut origination point is opened at the Groton-New London Airport. From this hub, 16 flights are operated each day to New York (La Guardia) via New Haven. As a result of the PATCO air traffic controllers’ strike, service to Newark dwindles as landing restrictions increase; it will be closed down entirely by year’s end.
On the financial front, a plan to reorganize and “go public” must also be delayed because of the PATCO action; $185,000 spent in preparation for the stock offering is lost. Higher interest rates meanwhile bring an across-the-board 10% salary cut. The company is able to successfully return to Wall Street in December. It sells 715,000 shares of common stock that brings in $3.2 million and that is employed to pay off shortterm debt, join the PARS computerized reservations system of Trans World Airlines (TWA) , and restore the pay cut.
Enplanements increase 56.6% to 74,113 and revenues climb to $4.1 million, a 42.2% boost. As expenses continue to rise, the net loss for the year registers $548,000.
Forty-six new employees are hired in 1983. An unusual public relations stunt on May 18 marks the introduction of the carrier’s latest aircraft. Before an assemblage of dignitaries and guests at the Tweed-New Haven Airport, the drawstring on a huge, polka-dotted replica of a pair of shorts is pulled to reveal NewAir’s new Shorts 360, painted in NewAir livery. They will be put on line for the benefit of the city and neighboring Connecticut communities.
A route is restarted to Newark on June 1. On June 28, a section of the Connecticut Turnpike Bridge over the Mianus River collapses, cutting off the primary ground route between New Haven and the New York airports. This disaster—or piece of good fortune, depending upon perspec-tive—allows the airline to double its boardings almost overnight. Even after the bridge is repaired, speed restrictions and other delays assist the company in maintaining a high traffic level.
By year’s end, the company operates 460 weekly flights from New Haven to New York’s three airports, Baltimore (BWI), Washington,
D. C. (DCA), Philadelphia, Groton-New London Airport, Sullivan County and the Catskills, and Long Island’s MacArthur Airport.
Passenger boardings increase 68% to 124,570 while revenues rise 32.2% to $8.7 million. Unfortunately, skyrocketing costs apparently cannot be controlled during a time of recession and stiff competition, but the net loss taken is reduced to $179,000.
Chairman Pellegrino’s small regional has a climactic 1984. Despite a 14.6% traffic rise to 142,696, the carrier records yet another huge loss, $548,000. Company officials know that, after suffering losses of $1,748,467 in six years, the end has come. The only alternatives are merger or bankruptcy.
The merger route is chosen and on February 19, 1985, the air transport division of NewAir is taken over by rival Pilgrim Airlines. The yet profitable NewAir FBO remains a separate entity, retains one Ban-deirante for its charter business, and acquires a 20% interest in the enlarged Pilgrim Airlines.
NEWAIR AIR SERVICE, A. S.: Billund Lufthavn, Billund, DK-7190, Denmark; Phone 45 7535 3377; Fax 45 7535 3277; Code WA; Year Founded 1990. NewAir is organized at Dragoer in 1990 to provide scheduled commuter flights to Esbjerg and Humberside. Managing Director Per Arpe’s inaugural fleet comprises just one used Handley Page HP-137 Jetstream 1. Revenue flights to the U. K. begin in March and before the year is out, the fleet receives three more HP Jetstreams, a Cessna 402C, and a Piper PA-31-310 Navajo.
The fleet in 1991 includes 4 HP-137s and 1 leased Swearingen SA226 Metro. The Cessna and Piper are withdrawn along with two Jetstream 31s in 1992 in favor of a Fairchild Hiller FH-227B and a Fairchild-Swearingen Metroliner.
Services continue in 1993-1999. During these years, the fleet is revised to include 2 FH-227Bs, 1 Fokker F.27-500, and 2 British Aerospace BAe Jetstream 31s. The FH-227Bs are replaced late in this period with a pair of Fokker 50s.
Four-times-a-week roundtrips from Geneva and Zurich to Pristina on behalf of the new Air Kosova are begun on July 3, 2000 with a Fokker 50 wet-leased from Newair. Another Newair Fokker 50 is acquired on July 21. Nonstop roundtrips from Pristina to Munich are launched on August 15.
The contract with Air Kosova is unhappily concluded on September 28 when Newair, which has not received its leasing fees, withdraws its aircraft.
World History
