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.
Read more about this topic: Piedmont Airlines
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.”
—Ruth Benedict (18871948)
“I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth; at least of possibilityI wish the history to be natural though the sentiments are refined; and the characters to be probable, though their behaviour is excelling.”
—Frances Burney (17521840)
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”
—Thomas Paine (17371809)