Transcontinental Air Transport (T-A-T) was an airline founded in 1928 by Clement Melville Keys that merged in 1930 with Western Air Express to form what became TWA. Keys enlisted the help of Charles Lindbergh to design a transcontinental network to get government airmail contracts. Lindbergh established numerous airports across the country in this effort.
On July 7, 1929, transcontinental trips began. It initially offered a 48-hour coast to coast trip with the passengers taking flights during the day and trains by night.
The first leg on the Pennsylvania Railroad departed from New York City at 6:05pm Eastern time and travelled overnight to Columbus, Ohio. There, passengers boarded a Ford Trimotor aircraft at what is now John Glenn Columbus International Airport, and flew to Waynoka, Oklahoma, an 11-hour flight that required four brief stops. At Waynoka, passengers boarded a Santa Fe Railway train for a second overnight rail trip to Clovis, New Mexico. There, they took a second Ford Trimotor flight to Los Angeles, with three stops along the way, eventually arriving at 5:52pm Pacific time at the Grand Central Airport in Glendale. [1]
The return journey departed from Los Angles at 8:45am and arrived at Now York at 9:50am in the morning of the third day. [1] The one-way fare from New York to Los Angeles was $352 ($6,246 in 2023). [2] [3]
The Ford Trimotor service was one of the first to offer meals en route, provided by the Fred Harvey Company. [4] ; Fred Harvey also provided meals on the ground at several stops. [1] The service was also one of the first to be geared toward passengers–most airlines at the time focused on transporting air mail. Cynics were to deride the TAT abbreviation as "Take A Train". And in its first eighteen months of operation, the company lost $2.7 million ($49.2 million in 2023). [5]
In November 1929 TAT bought Maddux Air Lines. The company was tendering to the United States Postal Service for the contract for the New York to Los Angeles air mail route. However, before granting the contract Walter Folger Brown, the US postmaster general forced TAT to merge with Western Air Express to form Transcontinental & Western Air (T&WA). [6] In October 1930, the new airline began an all-air, coast to coast passenger service that took 36 hours, with an overnight stop at Kansas City [7] [6] Western became an independent company once again in 1934. However, Transcontinental opted to retain the T&WA name, and eventually evolved into Trans World Airlines or TWA.
On September 3, 1929, NC9649, named City of San Francisco, crashed into the forested slope of Mount Taylor near Grants, New Mexico . The crash took place during a thunderstorm; the three crew and five passengers on board were killed. [8] [9]
The September crash was the first of three serious accidents for TAT over the next five months. [10]
Two of the Ford Tri-Motors that flew the transcontinental route with TAT, are preserved in flying condition:
The Western New Mexico Aviation Heritage Museum in Grants, New Mexico, has a restored light and arrow which was used to direct pilots along the route. The United States Forest Service district office in Grants stores a collection of items of wreckage recovered from the crash site of NC9649, City of San Francisco. A USFS-sponsored, 2009 archaeological survey of the site found many other fragments of the aircraft. [9]
Waynoka is a city in Woods County, Oklahoma, United States. It is located on U.S. Highway 281 and State Highway 14, seventy miles west of Enid. The population, which peaked at 2,018 in 1950, was 708 at the time of the 2020 Census.
Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major airline in the United States that operated from 1930 until it was acquired by American Airlines in 2001. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles via St. Louis, Kansas City, and other stops, with Ford Trimotors. With American, United, and Eastern, it was one of the "Big Four" domestic airlines in the United States formed by the Spoils Conference of 1930.
El Paso International Airport is an international airport located four miles (6 km) northeast of downtown El Paso, in El Paso County, Texas, United States. It is the busiest commercial airport in West Texas, and also serves Southern New Mexico and Northern Mexico. It handled 3,904,110 passengers in 2023, with 96,316 aircraft operations.
John Glenn Columbus International Airport is an international airport located 6 miles east of downtown Columbus, Ohio. Formerly known as Port Columbus International Airport, it is managed by the Columbus Regional Airport Authority, which also oversees operations at Rickenbacker International Airport and Bolton Field. The airport code "CMH" stands for "Columbus Municipal Hangar," the original name of the airport.
Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport is a public airport six miles (10 km) east of downtown Amarillo, in Potter County, Texas, United States. The airport was renamed in 2003 after NASA astronaut and Amarillo native Rick Husband, who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in February of that year.
The Ford Trimotor is an American three-engined transport aircraft. Production started in 1925 by the companies of Henry Ford and ended on June 7, 1933, after 199 had been made. It was designed for the civil aviation market, but also saw service with military units.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1930:
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1929:
Grand Canyon Airlines is a 14 CFR Part 135 air carrier headquartered on the grounds of Boulder City Municipal Airport in Boulder City, Nevada, United States. It also has bases at Grand Canyon National Park Airport and Page Municipal Airport, both in Arizona. It operates sightseeing tours and charter service over and around the Grand Canyon. Its headquarters and main operation center is Grand Canyon National Park Airport and Boulder City Municipal Airport. The company slogan is With Grand Canyon Airlines, Your Memories are Cleared for Takeoff!
Winslow–Lindbergh Regional Airport is 1 mile mile west of Winslow, in Navajo County, Arizona. The U.S. Forest Service has a firefighting air tanker base here. The airport was served by TWA and Frontier Airlines but now sees no airline service.
West Mesa Airport, also known as Western Air Express Airport, TWA Airport, or Cutter-Carr Airport, was an airport on the West Side of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States, which was the city's main commercial aviation facility during the 1930s. It was built in 1929 by Western Air Express as a stop on the airline's Los Angeles–Kansas City route, with a hangar and passenger terminal added in 1930. It was the city's second airfield after the original Albuquerque Airport, which was used by a rival airline, Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT). The two airlines merged in 1930 to form TWA, moving all of their operations to the West Mesa field. The merger gave TWA control of the nation's first coast-to-coast passenger airline route and allowed it to secure a lucrative federal airmail contract.
William John "Jack" Frye was an aviation pioneer in the airline industry. Frye founded Standard Air Lines which eventually took him into a merger with Trans World Airlines (TWA). Frye is credited for turning TWA into a world-class airline during his tenure as president from 1934 to 1947. He was called "The Flying President" among his peers. At age 24, he was and to this day the youngest airline executive of all time.
Maddux Air Lines was an airline based in Southern California that operated Ford Tri-motors in California, Arizona, and Mexico in the late 1920s.
On March 31, 1931, a Fokker F-10 belonging to Transcontinental and Western Air crashed near Bazaar, Kansas after taking off from Kansas City Municipal Airport, Kansas City, Missouri.
The Fokker F-10 was an enlarged development of the Fokker F.VII airliner, built in the late 1920s by the Fokker Aircraft Corporation of America. It was a trimotor passenger aircraft, and it carried 12 passengers. This was four more than the F.VII it was based on, and it had a larger wing and more powerful engines than that design. A crash of this aircraft in 1931, lead to widespread reforms in the U.S. aviation industry and hurt the reputation of wooden winged' aircraft, especially the Fokker Tri-motor types.
The Keystone K-78 Patrician was an airliner developed in the United States in the late 1920s, built only in prototype form.
Stout Metal Airplane Division of the Ford Motor Company was an American aircraft manufacturer founded by William Bushnell Stout as the Stout Metal Airplane Co. in 1922. The company was purchased by Ford Motor Company in 1924 and later produced the Ford Trimotor. At the height of the Great Depression, Ford closed the aircraft design and production division in 1936, temporarily re-entering the aviation market with the production of the B-24, at the Willow Run aircraft factory during World War II.
Ford Air Transport Service is a defunct airline based in United States of America. The airline was also registered as Ford Air Freight Lines.
Standard Air Lines was an airline founded by Jack Frye, Paul E. Richter and Walter A. Hamilton in 1927. The three had founded Aero Corporation of California in 1926 in Los Angeles and Standard was made a subsidiary of Aero in 1927.
Cannon Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base, located approximately 7 miles (11 km) southwest of Clovis, New Mexico. The host unit at Cannon is the 27th Special Operations Wing also known as "The Steadfast Line". It is under the jurisdiction of Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) which activated at the base on 1 October 2007. The 27 SOW plans and executes specialized and contingency operations using advanced aircraft, tactics and air refueling techniques to infiltrate, exfiltrate and resupply special operations forces (SOF) and provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and close air support in support of SOF operations.
