Pacific Air Lines was a regional airline (known at the time as a "local service" air carrier) serving the West Coast of the United States which began operations during the 1940s under the name Southwest Airways. The company operated as a feeder airline, linking smaller communities primarily in California and Oregon with major cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Founded largely with money from wealthy investors from the Hollywood motion picture industry, the airline was noted for employing cost-saving operational procedures and safety practices that were innovative for the time. The traveling public responded positively, and as passenger volume increased and more locations were served, a need for bigger and faster planes eventually resulted in adding modern aircraft to the fleet during the 1960s. However, the mid-60s were a troubled period for the company; a fatal crash in 1964 caused by a suicidal gunman was followed by a sharp decline in net income two years later, and in 1967 an unconventional ad campaign caused discord between stockholders and executives. The controversy subsided after a management shake-up, but the name Pacific Air Lines passed into history in 1968 when market conditions resulted in a merger with Bonanza Air Lines and West Coast Airlines, forming Air West which subsequently became Hughes Airwest.
Read more about Pacific Air Lines: Pacific Air Lines Era (1958–1968), Merger, Destinations, Fleet, Notes and References
Famous quotes containing the words pacific, air and/or lines:
“The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“I remember when I was first assigned to jets. I said to the colonel, “Colonel, I joined this man’s air force to fly an airplane. But nobody’s gonna hitch me to no Roman candle.””
—Kurt Neumann (1906–1958)
“We joined long wagon trains moving south; we met hundreds of wagons going north; the roads east and west were crawling lines of families traveling under canvas, looking for work, for another foothold somewhere on the land.... The country was ruined, the whole world was ruined; nothing like this had ever happened before. There was no hope, but everyone felt the courage of despair.”
—Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968)