History
Gulf Air Transport was founded in 1979. Initially they planned to obtain their own operating certificate and purchase 1 Convair 440, N4815C from Smyrna TN based Music City Airways; but after evaluating the process decided to buy Music City's certificate along with their only other airplane, a Convair 340, N3416. After changing Music City Airways name to Gulf Air Transport, they started working in the support of oil exploration companies with 2 Captains and 2 First Officers Convair CV-440. Next, they added a former North Central Convair 580 they purchased from Bolivia, N511GA; shortly followed by their final R2800 powered Convair 440, N411GA. In 1981, a Lockheed L-188 Electra N8355C was added and all along they were purchasing Republic Airlines Convair 580's, as Republic retired them. (Convair CV-580). On 4/24/1984, they purchased their first jet, a Boeing 727-100, N4620 from Pan Am, which included training at the Pan Am training center. Boeing 727 100 and 200s
The company added contracts to carry various college athletic teams, gambling junkets for casino's, especially in Lake Tahoe and other charter opportunities as the oil industry started cutting back in the early 80's. The company opened a crew bases in Philadelphia, Boston, and Detroit. Philadelphia was the largest base. The airline flew several contracts to places such as Aruba, Port-au-Prince, British Guyana, Atlantic City, San Juan, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, St. Croix, Nassau, Free Port, Aruba, Bonaire, Barbados, Cancún, Puerto Vallarta. Domestic destinations included Las Vegas, St. Louis, Orlando, and Atlantic City with others as single flight charters. Still other domestic cities were served by short term contracts or as first stops outbound including Baltimore, New York, Newark, and St. Louis.
One time charter flights were operated, particularly weekend sports charters, to many international destinations including Rock Sound International Airport, Curaçao, Granada, Puerto Plata, Bermuda, Port-au-Prince, London, and Warsaw. By the end of 1986, Gulf Air Transport had about 200 full time employees. In 1988, Gulf Air sent several 727-200s over to Malta for a six month "Sub-service contract" with Air Malta. The flight attendants and pursers were Air Malta employees, but the flight crews were Gulf Air Transport pilots.
In 1986, the company changed its name to just Gulf Air, but because of confusion with Bahrain-based Gulf Air, the airline was then forced to change its name to Trans Ocean Airways. Some time during this period, the successful, privately held company decided to go public and offered stock which shortly led to loss of managerial control of the company. Allegedly, former Capitol Air (not to be confused with Capital Airlines) and Arrow Air management personnel, took the company in a different direction and added two DC-8-63s from Scanair and one DC-8-71 leased from United Airlines to their fleet and hired additional flight attendants to crew their new transatlantic service to Ireland, England, Milan, Helsinki and the Azores. The DC-8's were often grounded and had long, expensive maintenance delays that required deeper pockets than Trans Ocean had. Along with a recession in the US economy in the 1980s, Trans Ocean began to lose money and by 1989 it had to seek protection from its creditors by entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy. However the airline failed to make a profit and in March 1990 all operations were ceased and the airline ceased to exist.
Read more about this topic: Gulf Air Transport
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“If usually the “present age” is no very long time, still, at our pleasure, or in the service of some such unity of meaning as the history of civilization, or the study of geology, may suggest, we may conceive the present as extending over many centuries, or over a hundred thousand years.”
—Josiah Royce (1855–1916)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth; at least of possibility—I wish the history to be natural though the sentiments are refined; and the characters to be probable, though their behaviour is excelling.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)