Route of the Aristocrats - a History of Southern Airways, Inc. INTRODUCTION The first time I encountered Southern Airways, Inc., was during the summer of 1963 when my family moved to Valparaiso, Florida. This small coastal community is the home of Eglin Air Force Base. I soon discovered about every three hours a Southern DC-3 or Martin 404 would fly over our house on final approach to Eglin Field. I owned an old pair of binoculars and would carefully focus-in each plane as I stood on the hill overlooking Eglin’s long north-south runway. As a teenager, my love for aviation began to evolve and Southern became my favorite airline. Since Southern was growing at a record pace during the mid-1960s, its public relations department had many press releases in the local newspaper. On 18 August 1965, Southern’s order for 3 DC-9 FanJETs was featured on the front page of Fort Walton Beach’s Playground Daily News. I became so impressed with the photograph and adjoining article that I carefully cut them out and began a Southern Airways scrapbook. This collection would eventually fill three large binders, From time-to-time I would write Redmond Tyler, Southern’s public relations director, and request annual reports, photographs, brochures, and other information. A lot of the material found in this book came from my personal collection and from the Southernaire, Southern’s employee magazine, which was sent to me each month beginning in 1968. In 1975, I sought a job at Southern when I completed my undergraduate degree in marketing. This proved to be a bad time to pursue an airline career with fuel shortages and layoffs plaguing the airline industry, therefore I placed my airline career on the back burner and sought employment elsewhere. As I saved money, I decided if I could not work for Southern, I could own a little bit of it. I became a Southern Airways stockholder. The next year I attended the stockholders’ meeting at Southern’s new Sullivan Road training center at the Hartsfield-Atlanta International Airport. Here I met Frank Hulse, Graydon Hall, Thomas Wiley, Red Tyler, and other company officials. Southern stockholders were given the royal treatment. Construction on the new maintenance base was about finished and we were given hardhats and a thorough tour of this impressive facility. Later, back in the training center, several flight attendants showed us around their classrooms discussing various elements of passenger and in-flight service. But, the highlight of my visit was sitting in the new DC-9 flight simulator with Mr. Hulse, Southern’s founder, explaining to me the various cockpit instruments. He asked the technicians to place the DC-9 in a sunset approach into Hartsfield-Atlanta. The window panels went blank and suddenly a whole new world opened up. We were sitting about ten miles out from touch down. Mr. Hulse helped me glide in the plane. Unfortunately my long sought career with Southern never materialized, but I will always hold a special memory of my visit to Southern Airways and the late Frank W. Hulse, III. The purpose of this book is to take an explicit look into the history of Southern Airways, Inc., as a company and to discuss the expanded airline industry that evolved in the United States after World War II. The local service airlines, which at one time numbered thirteen, was an experiment of the federal government to bring America’s hometowns dependable airline service. Before the locals came into existence only the larger metropolitan centers had airline service. The local service airlines were designed to fly passengers from smaller regional cities into the larger urban airports for connections across the United States. Today we call these airlines commuters and they generally fly nonstop from medium sized cities to large hub airports. But during the mid-twentieth century these local service airlines connected small cities with one another. Passengers flying Southern depended on Atlanta, Charlotte, Jacksonville, Birmingham, Memphis, and New Orleans for connecting service with the larger trunk airlines. This route arrangement allowed cities the size of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to have direct air service to Memphis, Birmingham, and Atlanta, along with several other smaller cities along the route. These airlines stayed generally small until the later half of the 1960s when jet aircraft such as the Douglas DC-9s and Boeing 737s began service. With the new fanjet powered airliners entering the small town markets, the Civil Aeronautics Board allowed the local service operators to become regional airlines with longer nonstop jet routes. By the mid-1970s, Southern’s passengers flew the highest percentage of jet flights of any regional airline in the United States. With expanded east coast and Midwest service, clever advertising, and outstanding customer service, Southern became one of the most progressive and modern operators in the regional airline industry. By the time deregulation was implemented in 1979, Southern’s operation was seen as being desirable to other airlines seeking merger partners. How Southern organized, implemented operations, and grew to become an important regional air carrier delineates the key elements to explore in understanding its colorful history. Under the leadership of Frank W. Hulse, the airline used traditions associated with southern hospitality and southern culture to plans its operations, procedures, and its corporate identity. Outstanding customer service and employee relations became the centerpiece of the Company’s operation. As the airline expanded into diverse marketplaces new opportunities for hundreds of talented and faithful employees was forthcoming. Furthermore, Southern sought routes and markets that would benefit the New South and its growing industrial, military, and tourism base. Southern grew by attracting new businesses to settle in the maturing cities along the “Route of the Aristocrats.” To help new industry with its air transportation needs helped Southern to expand out of its traditional region. In several important hearings, the Civil Aeronautics Board noted now Southern’s service attracted new industry, expanded airport facilities, and generally improved the economy of the cities it served. In other words, the South was Southern’s and Southern served the South. A writing project does not happen with the help of merely one or two people, but with a multitude of individuals. Many of these folks are unknown since they work behind the scenes in libraries across the country. However, I am greatly indebted to the University of Mississippi’s Interlibrary Loan Department for obtaining volumes of information from sources across the United States. I am also thankful to the Center for the Study of Southern Culture and Professors Charles Wilson and Jon Moan for their help and encouragement as the original manuscript evolved. As a graduate student at Ole Miss, I was also encouraged by William Ferris, Jr. who was then the director at the Center. Dr. Ferris now teaches southern history and folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Special thanks also go to my colleagues and students at Northwest Florida State College who have shown great interest and support for this project. I would like to thank my family and my friends for their input and help. And, finally, special thanks go to all the individuals who worked for Southern Airways during its thirty years of serving the South. Their dedication in making Southern one of the best airlines in the local service industry is the reason this book is possible.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 02:55:36 +0000
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