Throwback Thursday

Founded in 1944, Compania Dominicana de Aviacion, also known as Dominica, was launched with a fleet of DC-3s and, later, DC-6s at its headquarters in Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic. The ultimate goal for forming the airline was to create a true national airline to handle a growing amount of passengers. Over the course of their […]

Founded in 1945, Bonanza Airlines launched scheduled passenger service using a single aircraft out of their hub in Las Vegas, Nevada. Initially known as Bonanza Air Services in Las Vegas, the company would operate regular service over the skies over the southwestern US for slightly longer than two decades. The airline was developed as a result of the […]

The city of St. Petersburg, Florida is often overlooked in the history of aviation, even as it hosted the first airline in the world in 1914. More recently, the city was the founding home of National Airlines in 1934. The brainchild of George T. Baker, the airline began operations from the city’s waterfront Albert Whitted […]

In 2006, Caribbean Airlines was born out of the former British West Indies Airlines. At this time, the cost of flights in the Caribbean was increasing. This created the idea for REDjet, marketed as the Caribbean’s first low-cost airline. The investment group, AIRONE Holdings, originally wanted to base the airline in Jamaica. However, the government […]

Founded in 2006 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina based airline company Direct Air commenced operations  leasing aircraft with charter airlines. Their flights were operated by numerous other airlines, including Sky King, Inc., World Atlantic Airlines, USA Jet, and Xtra Airways, among others. The company’s first routes consisted of nonstop service from Myrtle Beach to Newark, Niagara […]

While Columbia, MO began to see route success with Trans World Airlines (TWA) in the 1990s, its local passengers struggled with high prices, leaving local resident William Stricker to take matters into his own hands. Stricker decided on buying the Ozark Airlines name, as well as two Dornier 328JET aircraft to start service between Columbia and Chicago Midway […]

With Purdue University consistently looking for ways to get ahead in the aviation world, the university looked to the skies as its next resource. The West Lafayette-based university had already made records in the 1930s when it became the first academic institution to own an airport, with the creation of Purdue University Airport on November […]

Founded in 1960, Aero Union Corporation was an aircraft maintenance and operation company that focused on aerial firefighting, including operating the aircraft, training crews, and designing fire fighting systems. Their company depended heavily on a contract with the US Forest Service. Initially from Redding, California, their headquarters was eventually established in Chico, California. In the beginning, […]

Virgin Atlantic has always been strong with long-haul service to holiday destinations from the United Kingdom. However, the carrier has never had much of a domestic presence. Virgin once had services to Dublin early in their history and some intra-European service, however none of these routes were domestic. In 2012, Richard Branson and Virgin Atlantic […]

Launched in 1946, Société Belge des Transports par Air SA, or Sobelair, operated past the turn of the century as a Belgian charter airline. Originalyl named Société d’Etude et de Transports Aerien, or SETA, the carrier operated their first revenue flight on October 15, 1946 with a DC-3 on a flower transport flight to Nice, France via Paris. […]