Call me old fashioned...

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The greatest flying bus...........
 
When I started at Skywest we had station agreements to fly them for free. I kept requesting tickets, but could never find a reason to go to MCI or MKE before they became Republic. Midwest was the victim of the priceline generation of travelers. An extra $100 for full frills service just isn't worth it to most people these days...
LOL. I was 3 days into school for them when I got "laid off". So sad. They were such a great airline.
 
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The greatest flying bus...........
I worked with a guy who used to be the Tower station manager in SFO. Those things were some of the oldest 747s off the line, constant MX issues...and the stories from pax...not very good. I heard one story that a booger was on the wall of the cabin, and it was just circled with a sharpie and left there. They also had such a horrible rate of lost luggage in JFK it may have made history.

Family Airlines though, 'Murikah!
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On the topic of 727-100s, those things looked damn good in bare metal. I really liked the Frontier Horizon livery, which may have been the first time a large US carrier spun off its own independent LCC. The "first" Frontier created this airline in the mid 80s to do no-frills service from Denver Stapleton to mostly the East and West Coast leisure markets like SFO, LGA, ect.
I'm also a fan of couple other lesser known 727-100 liveries from the 80s.
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That McClain bird used to sit on the north ramp of KPHX there for the longest time, right next to my old cargo operation office.
 
I worked with a guy who used to be the Tower station manager in SFO. Those things were some of the oldest 747s off the line, constant MX issues...and the stories from pax...not very good. I heard one story that a booger was on the wall of the cabin, and it was just circled with a sharpie and left there. They also had such a horrible rate of lost luggage in JFK it may have made history.

Back in early 2000, Tower took over the freedom bird contract from World, replacing their MD-11s with their 747-100s and flying into RKJK and RKSO from the states. One morning at RKSO, Im sitting in last chance just having armed up and #1 for takeoff with my flight of 2, awaiting a landing Tower 747 that's on an 8 mile final rw 27. Im getting a few things done in the cockpit when my wingman, who happens to be glancing towards the 747, notices parts falling off of it on about a 2 mile final. He quickly radios me "hey...did you see that? Something just fell off that 747". Sure enough, they'd lost some engine cowling panels or fuselage ones....multiple ones, that luckily didn't hit anything on the ground. That jet sat grounded on the MAC ramp there at RKSO for about 2 months almost; and the World MD-11s showed back up again.
 
LOL. I was 3 days into school for them when I got "laid off". So sad. They were such a great airline.

No way! That's one of the only airlines I would have ever wanted to work for simply for their service...that's what I would want to be a part of and feel good about presenting as an employee...not in a fake sense of loading the cattle. Everyone seemed to have good attitudes there, at least on the surface.
 
I don't mean to derail this thread but I was at a thrift store I frequent in a fairly rough part of KOMA when I found this:

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In my post about GP Express the FBO at LHSI was this place. I took my first intro flight out there and a few lessons before I moved to KOMA. I was shocked as hell when I saw it there. And I was close to buying it but it was 30 bucks (I only had 20 dollars in my pocket).

Oh and for KOMA people I also found this:

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Sky Harbor was the FBO in KOMA before it became TacAir.
 
I don't mean to derail this thread but I was at a thrift store I frequent in a fairly rough part of KOMA when I found this:

View attachment 25029

In my post about GP Express the FBO at LHSI was this place. I took my first intro flight out there and a few lessons before I moved to KOMA. I was shocked as hell when I saw it there. And I was close to buying it but it was 30 bucks (I only had 20 dollars in my pocket).

Oh and for KOMA people I also found this:

View attachment 25030

Sky Harbor was the FBO in KOMA before it became TacAir.

Whoa, time out. Did you say $30 for a hat at a thrift store? That would have shocked the hell out of me too.
 
When was the last time Portland looked like that?
Mid 90s to late 90s. Delta was awarded PDX-NGO when Japan offered a few extra slots to the DOT to be handed out to carriers. NRT, HKG, and a few other cities followed and PDX became an Asian hub for DL. The way it worked was most of the day, it was your typical line station for Delta.There were flights to all its hubs at the time (JFK, ATL LAX, SLC, CVG, DFW), but other than that, only SFO, SEA, and YVR were non-hub routes out of PDX. The planes flown on these flights were no smaller than 727s, in fact, L-1011s and MD-11s were flown regularly between the hubs and PDX. But the heyday of PDX was in the morning, a bunch of MD-11s (5 or 6 I think) would land all in a short period of time, along with a big bank of arrivals from the hubs and Skywest RJs from West Coast cities to feed the Asia departures. Pax would transfer off of the MD-11s onto domestic flights, other pax would transfer on, then there would be a huge rush of Delta planes all leaving PDX at once. Once it was over, arrivals were staggered throughout the rest of the day, and the airport just became another busy line station.

Never got to see it, but heard a lot of stories from people who were around for it. One of my good friends who grew up in PDX tells me the locals took pride in that hub and more people around town then you would think are aware that NRT has since become a 763 and are bitter about it. I've seen a few stories where local newspapers bitched about it, in fact.
 
Mid 90s to late 90s. Delta was awarded PDX-NGO when Japan offered a few extra slots to the DOT to be handed out to carriers. NRT, HKG, and a few other cities followed and PDX became an Asian hub for DL. The way it worked was most of the day, it was your typical line station for Delta.There were flights to all its hubs at the time (JFK, ATL LAX, SLC, CVG, DFW), but other than that, only SFO, SEA, and YVR were non-hub routes out of PDX. The planes flown on these flights were no smaller than 727s, in fact, L-1011s and MD-11s were flown regularly between the hubs and PDX. But the heyday of PDX was in the morning, a bunch of MD-11s (5 or 6 I think) would land all in a short period of time, along with a big bank of arrivals from the hubs and Skywest RJs from West Coast cities to feed the Asia departures. Pax would transfer off of the MD-11s onto domestic flights, other pax would transfer on, then there would be a huge rush of Delta planes all leaving PDX at once. Once it was over, arrivals were staggered throughout the rest of the day, and the airport just became another busy line station.

Never got to see it, but heard a lot of stories from people who were around for it. One of my good friends who grew up in PDX tells me the locals took pride in that hub and more people around town then you would think are aware that NRT has since become a 763 and are bitter about it. I've seen a few stories where local newspapers bitched about it, in fact.
I vaguely remember delta's large international operation in PDX. Another perfect example of how things change all the time.
 
I vaguely remember delta's large international operation in PDX. Another perfect example of how things change all the time.
Look at Seattle now...looks similar to DL's former PDX operation. I just wish they still flew trijets in there...all we get in SEA these days are the MD-11/MD-10's of FedEx
 
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