Pacific Air Lines - Merger

Merger

When the Boeing 727 jet order was optimistically announced by the airline in 1965, it was unforeseen that a change in the business climate was on the horizon and that economic realities would dictate that some of the jets would not actually end up flying under the Pacific Air Lines banner. Stiff competition from rival air carriers such as Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) and United Air Lines were factors in Pacific Air Lines joining forces with Bonanza Air Lines and West Coast Airlines in a three-way merger which resulted in the creation of Air West in 1968. Air West later became Hughes Airwest which was subsequently merged into Republic Airlines in 1980. Republic in turn was acquired by Northwest Airlines in 1987. Northwest was then merged into Delta Air Lines in 2008. At the time of the Air West merger, Pacific's fleet included eleven of their workhorse Fairchild F-27s, five Martin 4-0-4s, and three Boeing 727-100s, one of which was still leased-out but returned to Air West in late 1968. The last of the increasingly obsolete Martins were not carried forward into the Air West fleet and were disposed of in August 1968.

The two co-founders of Southwest Airways died within nine months of each other in 1971. John Connelly was 71, and Leland Hayward was 68.

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