History
United Airlines served Stockton from 1946 until 1980. Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) and successor USAir provided service from 1971-72 until 1980 and again from 1984 until 1991. The original Frontier Airlines (1950-1986) and successor Continental Airlines flew from the airport from 1980 to 1988. Southwest Airways and successors Pacific Air Lines and Hughes Airwest (which previously operated as Air West) served Stockton from 1955 until the late 1970s. The last turboprop airliner flights ended in 1995. America West Express, the regional airline affiliate of America West Airlines, initiated Canadair CRJ-200 regional jet flights to Phoenix in 2000-2001 but then ceased service and left the passenger terminal empty in 2003.
A number of airlines previously operated mainline passenger jet service from Stockton. These air carriers included United Airlines with Boeing 727-200 and 737-200 aircraft, PSA with Boeing 727-100, 727-200 and 737-200 jetliners as well as Douglas DC-9-30 and British Aerospace BAe 146-200 jets, Hughes Airwest with Douglas DC-9-10 and DC-9-30 aircraft, USAir with British Aerospace BAe 146-200 jets, and Continental Airlines and the original Frontier Airlines (1950-1986) with Boeing 737-200 aircraft. In addition, Pacific Express operated from the airport with British Aircraft Corp. BAC One-Eleven jets.
In June 2006 Allegiant Air began flying round trips to Las Vegas with McDonnell Douglas MD80 series jetliners and this service currently continues.
On October 26, 2007 Allegiant Air began MD80 jet flights to Phoenix-Mesa and on July 1, 2010 to Long Beach; however, service on both routes was then discontinued.
On October 28, 2011 Allegiant Air began twice weekly MD80 flights from Stockton to Palm Springs but then discontinued this service as well.
On November 18, 2012, Allegiant Air began flying twice weekly Boeing 757-200 nonstops from Stockton to Honolulu. This service has now been reduced to one flight per week on average.
Thus, Allegiant Air remains the only air carrier currently serving Stockton with one or two flights on average per day to Las Vegas and also one flight per week to Honolulu although the airline's service to Hawaii from the airport will be reduced commencing in May of 2013.
Allegiant's success at the airport could help draw other carriers to Stockton. Load factors for Allegiant are about 90 percent, which are apparently well above that required to be profitable.
Read more about this topic: Stockton Metropolitan Airport
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.”
—Henry Ford (1863–1947)
“I assure you that in our next class we will concern ourselves solely with the history of Egypt, and not with the more lurid and non-curricular subject of living mummies.”
—Griffin Jay, and Reginald LeBorg. Prof. Norman (Frank Reicher)
“What you don’t understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
—Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)