West Coast Airlines

West Coast was formed in 1941 and acquired Empire Air Lines (formerly Zimmerly Airlines) in 1952.[3][4] The company was based at Boeing Field in Seattle and began scheduled passenger service in 1946 with a fleet of Douglas DC-3s, marketed as Scenicliners.[5]

A promotional film produced for the company in the 1960s said that in 1946 the federal Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) granted the first regional airline certificate to West Coast Airlines as local service air carrier.

In July 1953 West Coast scheduled flights to 32 airports in Washington, Oregon and Idaho; in May 1968 it flew to 36 airports including 29 in those states. Like other Local Service airlines West Coast was subsidized; in 1962 its "revenues" included $6.6 million from passengers and $5.4 million for "mail".[6]

West Coast was the first local service airline in the U.S. to use turbine airliners when it began Fairchild F-27 flights in September 1958. The F-27 was the U.S. manufactured version of the Dutch built Fokker F27 Friendship. In June 1968 West Coast was the first airline to order Fairchild 228 twin jets with the acquisition of three planned, but the F-228, a smaller variant of the Dutch manufactured Fokker F28 Fellowship, never made it to production.[7] The only jet operated by West Coast was the Douglas DC-9-14 with 75 seats, all coach.

On July 1, 1968 West Coast merged with Pacific Air Lines and Bonanza Air Lines to form Air West, which became Hughes Airwest in 1970. In 1968 West Coast operated Douglas DC-9s, Fairchild F-27s, and Douglas DC-3s and Piper Navajos. The DC-3s were not transferred to Air West and were retired; the Navajos continued for a short time. The West Coast route system then included cities in Idaho, Oregon and Washington State and several in Montana. San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento in northern California were added in 1959 with Salt Lake City being served later. West Coast's only international destination was Calgary, Alberta which was served with F-27s from Spokane. Almost all West Coast flights at Seattle used Boeing Field (BFI) instead of Seattle/Tacoma International Airport (SEA); after the merger Air West and successor Hughes Airwest continued to use Boeing Field until DC-9 and F-27 flights moved to SEA in 1971.[8]

The April 28, 1968 West Coast timetable listed the following cities being served with Douglas DC-9-10 jets:[9]

• Boise, ID (BOI)
• Eugene, OR (EUG)
• Medford, OR (MFR)
• Pasco, WA (PSC)
• Portland, OR (PDX)
• Salt Lake City, UT (SLC)
• San Francisco, CA (SFO)
• Seattle, WA - Boeing Field (BFI)
• Spokane, WA (GEG)
• Walla Walla, WA (ALW)
• Yakima, WA (YKM)

Other destinations saw Fairchild F-27s, Douglas DC-3s and/or Piper Navajos (or, in 1966, Piper Aztecs).

West Coast's lineage runs through a string of mergers: In 1980 Hughes Airwest was acquired by Republic Airlines which had been created by a merger of Southern Airways and North Central Airlines in 1979. In 1986 Republic Airlines was acquired by Northwest Airlines (formerly Northwest Orient Airlines). The Delta-Northwest merger with Delta Air Lines as the surviving air carrier was completed in 2010.

In 2001 an attempt was made to resurrect the West Coast Airlines name, with plans for an airline based in Concord, California, to connect several Northern California cities with Las Vegas, Reno and San Diego. The effort ended in bankruptcy.[10]

A Canadian commuter airline with a similar name, West Coast Air, currently operates floatplanes between Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia.

• West Coast Airlines Flight 956 crashed on October 1, 1966 with eighteen fatalities and no survivors 5.5 miles (8.9 km) south of Wemme, Oregon. This accident marked the first loss of a Douglas DC-9.[11]
• West Coast Airlines Flight 720 crashed on March 10, 1967 with four fatalities and no survivors near Klamath Falls, Oregon. The Fairchild F-27 was bound for Medford, Oregon from Klamath falls, and crashed due to ice accumulation on the aircraft.

West Coast Fairchild F-27

The West Coast Airlines fleet consisted of the following aircraft:[12]

• 13 - Douglas DC-3
• 4 - Douglas DC-9-14
• 14 - Fairchild F-27
• Piper Aztec
• Piper Navajo (PA-31 model)

The April 28, 1968 West Coast timetable lists scheduled passenger flights to:[13]

• List of defunct airlines of the United States