Piedmont Airlines (1948–1989)

Martin 4-0-4 was Piedmont's first pressurized airliner

Like most airlines before deregulation, Piedmont did not have hubs. The airline would eventually fly jets to small airports and connected unlikely city pairs with jet flights: Kinston, North Carolina, and Florence, South Carolina; Roanoke, Virginia, and Asheville, North Carolina; Lynchburg, Virginia, and New York City's LaGuardia Airport; Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and Bristol/Kingsport/Johnson City, Tennessee; and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to Lynchburg, Virginia.

Its early routes stretched from Wilmington, North Carolina, northwest to Cincinnati, Ohio, with intermediate stops. All flights were on Douglas DC-3s.

Piedmont NAMC YS-11A at Washington National.

Fairchild-Hiller FH-227B at Washington National in 1972.

Boeing 727-100 at Chicago O'Hare Airport in 1979.

A Boeing 737-200 and a Boeing 737-300 at LaGuardia Airport in August 1985.

Piedmont started with Douglas DC-3s; it added Fairchild F-27s in late 1958 and Martin 4-0-4s at the beginning of 1962. FH-227B flights started (and F27 flights ended) in 1967 and NAMC YS-11A flights started in 1968.[8] In August 1953 it scheduled flights to 26 airports and in May 1968 to 47.

Like other Local Service airlines, Piedmont was subsidized; in 1962, its operating "revenues" of $18.2 million included $4.8 million "Pub. serv. rev."[9]

Piedmont's first jet flights took off in March 1967: 92-seat Boeing 727-100s on such routes as Atlanta - Asheville - Winston-Salem - Roanoke - New York LaGuardia Airport. Boeing 737-200s arrived in 1968; six 727-100s were added from 1977, and in June 1981 the airline added the Boeing 727-200. Piedmont's fleet was all-turbine after the last Martin 4-0-4 piston powered flights in 1972 and all-jet after the last NAMC YS-11 turboprop flights in 1982 (one 727-100 that Piedmont bought from Northwest Orient Airlines was the aircraft hijacked by D. B. Cooper). Fokker F28 Fellowship jets were added to the fleet as well as Boeing 737-300s, 737-400s and 767-200ERs.

In 1949 the network extended from Cincinnati and Louisville east to Norfolk and points south. The map reached Knoxville in 1951–1952, Columbus OH and Washington DC in 1955, Atlanta and Baltimore in 1962, New York La Guardia in 1966, Nashville and Memphis in 1968 and Chicago Midway in December 1969.

In 1978, still under U.S. route regulation, Piedmont added Boston, Denver, and Miami. Flights to Dallas/Ft. Worth and Tampa began in 1979 followed by Houston in January 1980 and New Orleans in 1982.[10] In 1984 Los Angeles and San Francisco were added followed by Minneapolis/St. Paul in 1985, Montreal and Ottawa with the Empire Airlines merger in July 1986, and Seattle, Phoenix and San Diego in 1987.[11] In 1988 the airline was serving a new international destination, Nassau, Bahamas[12] and by 1989 was flying to Bermuda and nonstop between Los Angeles and Baltimore, Charlotte, Dayton, and Tampa; nonstop between San Francisco and Charlotte, Dayton and Kansas City; nonstop between Phoenix and Baltimore and Charlotte; and nonstop between Seattle and Charlotte[13] Shortly before the merger with USAir in 1989, Piedmont had hubs at Baltimore, Charlotte, Dayton and Syracuse.[13] Syracuse was the smallest hub; it had been an Empire hub.[14]

A Boeing 767-200ER at London Gatwick Airport.

After deregulation in the late 1970s the airline grew rapidly and developed a hub at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, North Carolina. Piedmont bought Empire Airlines, based in Utica, New York, in 1985 which brought Fokker F28 Fellowships into the fleet.[1] Passenger-miles for the merged airline in 1987 were almost nine times Piedmont's RPMs in 1977.

Later hubs included Baltimore/Washington International Airport; James M. Cox Dayton International Airport in Dayton, Ohio; and Syracuse Hancock International Airport in Syracuse, New York. Nonstops from Charlotte to the west coast started in 1984 on Boeing 727-200s that were Piedmont's first jets with a first-class section. New Boeing 767-200ERs (ER for "Extended Range"), the airline's only wide-body jet, flew nonstop Charlotte to London Gatwick Airport beginning in 1987. The 767 also flew nonstop Charlotte-Los Angeles.[15] Shortly before it was acquired by USAir, Piedmont was the first airline to announce fleet-wide adoption of the Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS).[1]

Several commuter and regional airline affiliates provided passenger feed for Piedmont via code sharing agreements, including Britt Airways, Brockway Air, CCAir, Henson Airlines and Jetstream International Airlines.[16] These operations were identified by several different names including Piedmont Commuter System, Piedmont Shuttle Link and The Piedmont Regional Airline.[17] Turboprop aircraft operated by these airlines included the Beechcraft 99, Beechcraft 1900C, British Aerospace BAe Jetstream 31, de Havilland Canada DHC-7 Dash 7, de Havilland Canada DHC-8 Dash 8, Fokker F-27-600, Saab 340, Short 330 and Short 360.[18]

US Airways A319 in a hybrid US Airways/Piedmont "retro" livery

Piedmont's expanding route system, its loyal passenger following, and its profitability caused it to gain notice among other airlines for a potential buyout. On August 5, 1989, Piedmont Airlines was absorbed by USAir (formerly Allegheny Airlines); the combination became one of the East Coast's largest airlines. USAir later changed its name to US Airways, which merged with America West Airlines on November 4, 2007. US Airways merged with American Airlines on October 17, 2015, with the American name being retained. The Charlotte hub established by Piedmont and maintained by US Airways continues under American; it is now American's second-largest hub.

Piedmont Airlines (formerly Henson Airlines) still exists as a brand within American Airlines, doing business as American Eagle.