Airlines of the (Somewhat Recent) Past

As I posted earlier, I've begun the process of focusing more on aviation and aviation history and less on current political discourse in this country.  I spent some time last week taking an "aviation deep dive" into my aviation photos and found this one from 2009:

US Airways A-319 taxing into poisiton

This photo shows a US Airways Airbus A-319 about to depart Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Northern Virginia.  This photo was likely shot at in the spring or early summer at dusk from Gravelly Point, a park and plane spotters paradise located at the end of the runway of National Airport. The Hat Trick spent many fond afternoons and evenings plane spotting in this very location and it's one of the few things I miss about Washington, DC!

US Airways was the major carrier at National Airport throughout the '80s and '90s and, at one point, had its corporate headquarters across the street from the airport in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia.  Prior to 1997 US Airways was known as US Air and, previous to 1979, the airline was known as Allegheny Airlines but changed to US Air following passage of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978.  By the time this photo was taken in 2009, US Airways had combined with several other airlines to create the current company having absorbed Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) and Piedmont Airlines in 1987 and 1989, respectively. Following two trips to Chapter 11 bankruptcy, US Airways itself was merged into America West Airlines in 2005 with America West Airlines as the surviving corporate entity but adopting the more national-oriented name of US Airways.  The combined airline maintained hubs at Philadelphia (PHL), Charlotte (CLT) and Phoenix (PHX) with a large focus operation at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA).  The end of US Airways finally arrived in 2015 following consolidation of the Big Six carriers (American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United and US Airways) into three mega-carriers - American (combined with US Airways), Delta (combined with Northwest) and United (combined with Continental).  The US Airways/American merger was the final one of the Big Three to take place with the management of US Airways taking the leadership positions in the new company, but keeping the American name and corporate headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas.

The final flight of US Airways took place on October 17, 2015 and with the end of that flight a storied, if not complicated (who can forget Metrojet?), chapter in aviation history came to an end..

A New World

Yesterday the Hat Trick began a 30-day voluntary furlough as part of the flight reductions all airlines are experiencing.  It was the right thing to do as the kids definitely need a little more support as they finish their schools years online.  Mrs. East Coast Wing continues to work from home and she was having to manage both schoolwork and her own work.  My station has seen some tremendous cuts since March, some seasonal and expected, but others a direct result of the Coronavirus pandemic.  Beginning yesterday we are now down to one flight a day, after having a high of 11 flights a day in mid-March.  Ironically we've gone from not having quite enough staff and struggling to having way too many staff onsite for the one flight.  So I'll take a month off and see where we are in June.  The break will be good after a very busy winter and spring that then crashed into stress and anxiety due to the Coronavirus and going to work each day with these new stressors.

With this 30-day furlough I'm going to try and use this opportunity to write more, both on this blog and in other projects I have worked on, with fairly unimpressive progress, over the past few years.  I'm also going to use this opportunity to change the focus a little bit on the Hat Trick.  This blog was created many years ago to talk about three different subjects:  Hockey, Politics and Travel and those were subjects I really enjoyed discussing.  I still love to talk about travel and my professional life has gravitated towards that love by my employment with a major U.S. airline working in operations at a small station.  I've gone from being a Brooks Brother wearing lobbyist to a regular guy on the ramp, loading and unloading bags, marshaling aircraft in and even performing the pushback of aircraft at departure.  It's a huge change and I do like it most days, even the rough ones.  However, the political world has changed a lot and I'm growing more and more weary of it and I just can't stomach discussing the antics of the current occupant of the White House.  And since the NHL season is on hiatus due to Coronavirus it looks like I will just be covering aviation, focus on happier times in aviation and not the current crisis we are experiencing. More old photos, videos and old memories will be covered here, plus an increase in out to Twitter.  Hopefully it will be a positive occurrence in these dark times.