West Coast Airlines - History

History

West Coast was formed in 1941 and acquired Empire Airlines (formerly Zimmerly Airlines) in 1952. The company was based at Boeing Field, Seattle, and began scheduled passenger service in 1946 with a fleet of DC-3s marketed as Scenicliners.

A promotional video for the company produced in the 1960s stated that in 1946 the Civil Aeronautics Board granted the first regional airline certificate to West Coast Airlines.

West Coast was the first local service airline in the U.S. to operate turbine powered aircraft when it initiated Fairchild F-27 turboprop flights in September 1958. In June 1968 West Coast was the first airline to order Fairchild 228 regional jet airliners with the acquisition of three of the type planned. However, the Fairchild 228, which was proposed as a smaller variant of the successful Fokker F28 Fellowship twin jet, never made it to the production phase. The only jet aircraft type operated by West Coast was the Douglas DC-9-14. The airline's DC-9s were configured with 75 passenger seats in an all coach layout.

On July 1, 1968 West Coast merged with Pacific Air Lines and Bonanza Air Lines to form Air West, which was renamed Hughes Airwest in 1970. At the time of the merger West Coast operated Douglas DC-9 jet, Fairchild F-27 propjet, Douglas DC-3 and Piper Navajo aircraft. The DC-3 aircraft were not transferred to the new Air West operation but were instead retired. The West Coast route system at the time of the merger included an extensive network of destinations in Idaho, Oregon and Washington State as well as several cities in Montana. San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento in northern California were served as well as was Salt Lake City, Utah. The route map also included West Coast's only international destination: Calgary, Alberta in western Canada which was served with Fairchild F-27 propjet flights from Spokane. Service to Seattle was provided in a singular fashion as all West Coast flights operated via Boeing Field (BFI) and thus not from Seattle/Tacoma International Airport. After the merger, Air West continued to operate from Boeing Field before eventually moving all flights to Seattle/Tacoma International (SEA).

The April 28, 1968 West Coast Airlines timetable lists the following destinations that were served with Douglas DC-9 jetliners by the carrier:

• Boise, ID (BOI)
• Eugene, OR (EUG)
• Medford, OR (MFR)
• Pasco, WA (PSC)
• Portland, OR (PDX)
• Salt Lake City, UT (SLC)
• San Francisco, CA (SFO)
• Seattle, WA - Boeing Field (BFI)
• Spokane, WA (GEG)
• Walla Walla, WA (ALW)
• Yakima, WA (YKM)

Other destinations were served with Fairchild F-27 propjets as well as by Douglas DC-3 and Piper Navajo prop aircraft depending on the size of the specific market.

West Coast's lineage runs through a string of airline mergers: In 1980 Hughes Airwest was acquired by then newly formed Republic Airlines which had been created via a merger of Southern Airways and North Central Airlines the previous year. In 1986 Republic Airlines was acquired and absorbed by Northwest Airlines which had previously operated as Northwest Orient Airlines up to that time. The current Delta-Northwest merger with Delta Air Lines remaining as the surviving air carrier was completed in 2010.

In 2001 an attempt was made to resurrect the West Coast Airlines name, with plans for an airline based in Concord, California, to connect several Northern California cities with Las Vegas, Reno and San Diego. The abortive effort ended in bankruptcy.

An airline with the similar name West Coast Air operates floatplane services between Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia.