Delta
Airlines
Delta Air Lines’ long history
of service actually began in agriculture, when the company
was founded in 1924 as the world’s first aerial crop dusting
organization -- Huff Daland Dusters. In fact, if the boll
weevil had not marched out of Mexico prior to the turn of
this century to devastate the cotton fields of the South,
there might not have been a Delta Air Lines. When the
weevil’s relentless destruction reached the Mississippi
Valley, such a serious economic threat faced the South that
the Bureau of Entomology operated a laboratory in Tallulah,
Louisiana, as the base for an intensified cotton insect
investigation. Directing the activities at the laboratory
was Dr. B. R. Extension Department of Coad, assisted by a
young district agent with the Louisiana State University,
C. E. Woolman. Woolman, an agricultural engineering
graduate of the University of Illinois, was also an aviation
enthusiast. Since the airplane was little more than a
novelty with an uncertain future then, Woolman settled for
the more certain future of agriculture. By 1916, Dr. Coad
and Woolman had their first promising weapon -- lead
arsenate, a dry powder. What was needed was a method of
application that would be faster and more effective than
hand sprinkling. Application by air seemed most practical,
and Dr. Coad obtained a small appropriation from Congress to
pursue this experiment. For more long years, Coad’s
entomologists and Woolman worked with two Army-furnished
Jennys, experimenting and perfecting dusting procedures.
In 1923,
fate gave the experiments a new future. George Post, an
executive of an Ogdensburg, New York, airplane manufacturer,
was forced down in Tallulah when his plane developed
mechanical problems. Post was so enthusiastic about the
aerial crop dusting activities he discovered while in
Tallulah that he convinced his company’s management to form
a separate division -- the Huff Daland Dusters. Huff Daland
Dusters started operations in 1924 at Macon, Georgia, but a
lack of
experience and the small number of cotton fields in the area
resulted in an unsuccessful first season. Dr. Coad, an
interested observer from the Louisiana government
laboratory, suggested the Dusters move there. Thus, in 1925
headquarters were established at Monroe, Louisiana.
On May 30,
1925, Woolman left the Agriculture Extension Service to take
charge of Huff Daland’s entomological work as vice president
and field manager. To the company he brought a genial
personality, integrity and a stubborn resistance to failure
-- traits which have endured at Delta. The parent company,
Huff Daland Manufacturing in New York, built the first
planes
ever specifically designed for dusting, and Huff Daland
Dusters’ fleet became the largest privately-owned aircraft
fleet in the world with 18 planes. The number soon grew to
25 small planes and some larger planes, called "Ton of
Dust."
Since the
dusting company had an income only during summer months,
Woolman decided to shift operations during non-productive
months to Peru where seasons are reversed. It was in Peru
that Woolman first visualized the future of passenger
service by air, and he successfully secured South American
airmail rights over stiff competition to become the first
American airline operator south of the equator in the
western hemisphere. Service from Peru to Ecuador, a
1,500-mile route, was inaugurated in 1927.
Returning to
Monroe in 1928, Woolman found the parent company, Huff
Daland Manufacturing, attempting to sell the dusting
division. He quickly aroused the interest of Monroe
businessmen who purchased Huff Daland’s equipment. The
company’s name was changed to Delta Air Service ("Delta" for
the Mississippi Delta), with D.Y. Smith as the first
president and Woolman retaining his title of vice president
and general manager. Back in Peru, a revolution was
erupting, and as the few planes and equipment remaining
there attracted revolutionaries’ attention as military
tools, Woolman sold his South American dusters in 1928 to a
Peruvian firm. He sold the airmail route to Pan American
Grace, forming the nucleus of Panagra.
The
company’s U.S. dusting operations continued until 1966, but
new undertakings were underway in 1928 as Delta Air Service
purchased three five-passenger, 90-mile-per-hour Travel Air
monoplanes. On June 17, 1929, over an original route that
stretched from Dallas, Texas, to Jackson, Mississippi, with
stops in Shreveport and Monroe, Louisiana, Delta
operated its first passenger flight. As additional planes
were delivered from the factory, service was extended
eastward to Birmingham, Alabama, and westward to Fort Worth,
Texas.
This
represented a bold financial venture since the route was
operated without benefit of a mail contract, and revenue
from airmail was needed to supplement passenger operating
expenses. The year 1930 brought news that the Post Office
Department had awarded the badly needed airmail contract for
the Southern route to a rival airline. Dusting operations
were expanded and Dr. Coad joined Delta as chief
entomologist. In 1934, Delta had an opportunity to win back
the route it had pioneered from
Dallas/ Ft. Worth to Birmingham as the Post Office cancelled
all airmail contracts and called for new bids. Delta’s bid
won the airmail contract for the route from Fort Worth to
Charleston, South Carolina, via Atlanta. Delta’s first
airmail flight on July 4, 1934, was flown by Stinson T
aircraft. The planes were capable of carrying seven
passengers and the mail at speeds of 100 miles per hour.
From this point the airline’s climb to prominence in air
transportation was firmly established.
While Delta
was busy developing its Southern route, three other pioneer
airlines, each destined to play key roles in Delta’s future,
were developing: two in the West and one in the Northeast.
Chicago and Southern Air Lines (C&S) became part of Delta
through a merger in 1953. Northeast Airlines merged with
Delta in 1972. Western Air Lines was merged into Delta in
1987.
Chicago and
Southern’s founder, Carleton Putnam, began his career in law
and politics before discovering aviation. While walking
down a New York City street one day, he saw an airplane for
sale and bought it. He arranged for flying lessons packaged
as a cross-country flight, and by the time he reached
California, Putnam had decided to try his hand in the field
of air transportation. Putnam’s new airline, Pacific
Seaboard Air Lines, made its first flight on June 25, 1933,
without benefit of an airmail contract. Flying from Los
Angeles along the seaboard route to San Francisco, the
airline stopped at Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, Paso Robles,
Salinas and Monterey.
In 1934, the
Post Office Department’s call for new bids on all airmail
routes gave Putnam hope for financial stability, and he
sought one of these contracts. When his bid for the
Chicago-New Orleans route won, he shifted operations to the
Mississippi Valley. Putnam’s airline inaugurated mail
service between Chicago and New Orleans via Memphis on June
3, 1934; passengers were first flown on July 13, 1934. In
December 1935, the company name was changed to Chicago and
Southern Air Lines. Meanwhile, the Northeast, Boston and
Maine Airways, made its first flight on August 11, 1933,
from Boston to Portland and Bangor, Maine, using
eight-passenger Stinson T equipment. A subsidiary of the
Boston and Maine Railroad Company, the carrier’s first
flights were operated under contract by National Airways
whose founders included Paul Collins, one of the country’s
first airmail pilots; Samuel J. Solomon, a pioneer airport
operator; Eugene Vidal, a West Point graduate; and Amelia
Earhart, the famed aviatrix.
The first
company headquarters were located in a hangar on a hay field
at Scarboro, Maine, just south of the Portland Airport. At
the end of the winter, a heated hangar became available in
Boston, and headquarters were transferred there. In 1937,
Boston and Maine purchased National Airways’ assets,
including its airmail contract, and in November 1940, the
airline was renamed Northeast Airlines. Western Air Express
was incorporated on July 13, 1925. Harris Hanshue, first
president and general manager, and Major Corliss Mosely,
vice president and director of operations, bid for the new
airmail route from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City and were
granted the route in November 1925. The new airline’s first
flight took the mail from
Los Angeles to Salt Lake City on April 17, 1926.
The first
passengers were carried, riding on folding seats in the mail
compartment, on May 3, 1926, from Salt Lake City to Los
Angeles. Mail routes were expanded, and in May 1928 new
passenger service was added between Los Angeles and San
Francisco. On board, passengers were served meals prepared
by a posh Los Angeles restaurant. By mid 1930, Western had
the largest air system in the world, covering 16,000 miles
with 40 aircraft. Fortunes took a sudden change in 1930 with
the passage of the Watres Bill which forced a merger of the
routes of Western and Transcontinental Air Transport.
Western was left with only a few routes and the company
payroll was cut by two-thirds. Still, Western kept flying
its original Los Angeles to Salt Lake City route.
In the late
1930s and early 1940s, Western began to regroup by operating
in conjunction with United Air Lines as "through" flights.
National Park Airways became a part of Western in 1937,
expanding the company into the Montana region.
The year 1941 saw Western Air Express change its name to
Western Air Lines as passengers overtook postage as
Western’s primary business. The year 1941 also brought a
major change to Delta Air Lines as the company’s general
offices and overhaul base were moved from Monroe to
Atlanta. The year also brought the four young airlines --
Delta, C&S, Northeast and Western -- into World War II and a
period when growth slowed, then stopped, as they directed
their energies to the war effort. When the fighting
stopped, the four airlines renewed their growth as their
airplanes, personnel and passengers returned from the war.
Like many
airlines in the early 1950s, C&S began to consider the
prospect of a merger as a method of expanding its route
system. With the complementary character of Delta and C&S’s
combined route maps and the fact that both companies shared
a common business philosophy, a merger appeared natural. On
May 1, 1953, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) formally
transferred the routes of Chicago and Southern to Delta Air
Lines. The years following the merger saw new growth and
strengthening of the company’s prominence in air
transportation. Delta became a jet leader among the world’s
airlines, becoming the first to introduce the DC-8 (in
1959), CV-880 (in 1960) and DC-9 (in 1965) to passenger
service.
While Delta
was setting the industry lead in jet service, Northeast,
too, was busy introducing jets. In 1959 the airline became
one of the first U.S. carriers offering Boeing 707 service
when it began jet flights on the New York to Miami route.
In 1965, Storer Broadcasting Company purchased Northeast,
and the next year the carrier acquired a new image as
Northeast aircraft became known as Yellowbirds because of
their new yellow and white exteriors. Yellowbird would
become a household word in the area served.
In the late
1960s, Northeast received several new routes, but its
financial problems failed to improve. It was these
difficulties that led to the search for a merger partner,
and on August 1, 1972, the merger between Delta and
Northeast Airlines
became effective. Meanwhile, Western expanded its route
system to the international destinations of Mexico City,
Mexico, and Calgary, Canada, in the late 1950s. The
airline’s jet age arrived in June 1959 when the first
Western jet flew from Los Angeles to Seattle, and in July
1969, the long-sought California-Hawaii route was begun.
Delta’s
route system expanded considerably in the 1970s, not only
through the Northeast merger, but also through a series of
route awards by the CAB. Delta’s first transatlantic route
was inaugurated April 30, 1978, from Atlanta to London. The
Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 brought more changes
virtually overnight than had been experienced in the entire
40 years the airlines spent under formal government
regulation. Delta continued a steady, controlled growth amid
the frenzied expansion of some competitors.
For Western,
deregulation led to financial difficulties. In early 1984,
Western was losing one million dollars a day and its future
looked bleak. But by 1985, the airline made nearly a $100
million turnaround. On September 9, 1986, Delta and Western
announced a merger agreement providing for Delta’s
acquisition of Western. Operations of the two airlines were
merged April 1, 1987. In 1991, Delta acquired the
transatlantic routes of a bankrupt Pan Am and became a major
provider of service across the Atlantic.
Delta
demonstrated it’s pioneering spirit once again in June 1993
by establishing international code sharing. By combining
with other airlines around the globe, service has expanded
to include more than 350 cities in over 55 countries. In
1998, Delta made aviation history by carrying over 105
million passengers, breaking the company's previous record
of 103 million set in 1997. With 70 years of experience and
a renewed commitment to customer satisfaction, Delta now
aims to be the best airline in the world. |