The Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WNLA) in 1952 elects to begin transporting workers for the South African mining industry by air. Employing Douglas DC-3s, the concern flies 11,000 miners to Fran-cistown from Mohembo, Maun, Mongu, Livingstone, Lilongwe, Blan-tyre, Fort Hill, and Ndola. At the capital of Botswana, then known as the Bechuanaland Protectorate, the miners are outfitted and dispatched by road and rail to the mines.
Within two years, Wenela is flying 58,000 workers per year. In 1958, the fleet includes 8 DC-3s and 1 DC-4 and boardings total 80,000.
The service transports an annual average of 100,000 workers per year during the 1960s and into the early 1970s. During these years, there is no charge for miners being transported into Francistown. The trip out, however, brings in a small amount of income as the workers, having been paid, are charged for their flights.
Also during these years, additional airlines begin to fly workers and the surface travel infrastructure is improved.
Contaminated fuel causes engine failure aboard a DC-4 with 4 crew and 80 passengers, on April 4, 1974, and a subsequent crash near Fran-cistown, Botswana (78 dead).
WNLA suspends its air service in 1975.
WELCH AVIATION: United States (1987). Robert C. Welch establishes this commuter named for himself at Alpena, Michigan, in the spring of 1987 to offer scheduled shuttle flights to Detroit’s Metropolitan Airport. Piper PA-31-310 Navajo frequencies are duly inaugurated, but end six months later when the company is driven out of its market by Simmons Airlines.
World History
