Piedmont Airlines - History

History

The airline was formed in 1961 by Richard A. Henson as Henson Aviation, a fixed base operator in Hagerstown, Maryland. It began its first scheduled flights to Washington National Airport in 1962 under the Hagerstown Commuter name, later changed to Henson Airlines. Allegheny Airlines (now US Airways) and Henson began one of the world's first code sharing arrangements in 1967, and Henson re-branded itself as an Allegheny Commuter carrier using Beechcraft 99 aircraft. It initially developed a route structure serving Washington DC, Philadelphia and Baltimore while establishing a new headquarters for Allegheny Commuter at Salisbury, Maryland in 1968. In the 1970s the airline upgraded to Shorts 330 and de Havilland Dash 7 turboprops.

In 1983 Piedmont Aviation bought Henson and re-branded the airline as "Henson, The Piedmont Regional Airline." Under Piedmont's control the airline expanded rapidly, particularly in Florida. Both were purchased by the USAir Group in 1987 with Piedmont absorbed two years later and Henson's aircraft repainted in USAir Express livery. The 1980s saw rapid growth by the company with the upgrade of its fleet to the de Havilland Canada Dash 8 aircraft and fleet expansion. With the growth in capacity the airline expanded to Florida, including numerous intrastate routes in Florida, and it opened a maintenance facility in Jacksonville.

The Piedmont name was resurrected in 1993, when USAir (now US Airways) renamed Henson to "Piedmont Airlines", to protect the Piedmont brand name, which could be used by others if not exercised in trade use for a period of time. USAir continued this practice by changing the name of its two other wholly owned regional airline subsidiaries, Jetstream and Allegheny Commuter, to PSA Airlines and Allegheny Airlines, respectively. (Pacific Southwest Airlines was the name of a California-based airline merged into USAir.) In 1997, USAir was renamed US Airways, and Piedmont was likewise re-branded as a US Airways Express carrier. US Airways merged Allegheny Airlines into Piedmont in 2004. The airline has 6,150 employees (at November 2007), and operates crew bases at Roanoke, Salisbury, New Bern, Charlottesville, and Harrisburg. As of 2011 Piedmont is currently the exclusive operator out at Tweed New Haven Regional Airport, Hilton Head Airport and Williamsport Regional Airport.