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..