As the oldest passenger airline in existence, Delta traces its roots to 1925, when it initially operated crop spraying services like Huff Daland Dusters with the Petrel 31. Nicknamed the “Puffer,” it was the first agricultural aircraft designed specifically to protect cotton fields in the southern United States against the boll weevil.
Independence and a Delta Air Service name three years later put the fledgling company on the threshold of gradual growth.
A sparse route network of four destinations enabled it to serve Dallas, Shreveport, Monroe, and Jackson beginning June 17, 1929.
Shedding its farmhouse image a decade later, it acquired Lockheed L-10A Electra and Douglas DC-3 cabin planes, facilitating service after being awarded a route to Savannah, Knoxville and Cincinnati, and from Chicago to Miami in 1946, albeit via these cities with an additional landing at Charleston.
Even larger, faster, and more advanced four-engine piston liners improved their image, the Douglas DC-4 replaced the DC-3 in the Midwest-Florida race, the DC-6 replaced the DC-4 in December 1948, and the DC-7 replaced it on April 1, 1954.
Its coverage increased significantly four years later, on May 1, when it merged with Chicago and Southern.
Delta entered the jet era on September 18, 1959 with the Douglas DC-8-10 and this was followed less than a year later with the Convair CV-880 in short and medium range sectors. Despite the speed advantage achieved with its Rolls Royce Conway engines, it was both deafening and thirsty for fuel.
A southern route authority, granted in 1962, elevated Delta to transcontinental carrier status, allowing it to operate from Dallas to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Other service expansions included those from Atlanta to Jacksonville and Orlando and those to Phoenix and Las Vegas. However, like Eastern, it remained primarily an East Coast airline.
Overly large and offering more range than necessary, the DC-8 and CV-880 were replaced by the twin-engined Douglas DC-9 in 1965 in short-range, low-capacity US domestic sectors.
The carrier widebody era dawned early in the next decade with the Boeing 747-100 in 1970, the McDonnell-Douglas DC-10-10 two years later to provide the capability needed during Lockheed L-1011 delivery delays, and the TriStar itself.
By acquiring Northeast Airlines on August 1, 1972 for its much-demanded sun routes, it acquired Boeing 727-100 tri-jets and was able to inaugurate service from Montreal and Boston to Miami and include Bermuda and Nassau and Freeport in the Bahamas on its network.
Operating from a hub in Atlanta, with secondary traffic hubs in Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Fort Lauderdale, Memphis, New Orleans, New York and Tampa a decade later, Delta had expanded to become the third largest airline, carrying 34.7 million passengers in 1979 and operating 1,300 daily flights to 80 destinations in the US, Canada, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, the UK and West Germany. His catchphrase, appropriately, was “Delta is ready when you are.”
Its growth, accelerated with the purchases of the European routes of Pan Am and Western Airlines, became exponential. As evidenced by the voluminous 433-page July 1, 1988 edition of its system calendar, it operated more than 2,200 sorties with some 380 aircraft to 156 destinations in 42 US states, hubs from Salt Lake City.
A fairly mixed fleet of Boeing, Lockheed and McDonnell-Douglas included 727-200 (12 first class and 136 economy passengers), DC-9-30 (12F and 86Y), 737-200 (12F and 95Y or 8F and 107Y), DC-10-10 (36F and 248Y), L-1011-1, – 250 and -500 (featuring various configurations, including 32F and 270Y, 12F, 54C, and 203Y, 12F, 40C, and 189Y, and 18F, 64C, and 140Y), MD-88 (14F and 128Y), 737-300 (8F and 120Y), 757-2 00 (16 F and 171Y), 767-200 (18F and 186Y), 767-300 (24F and 230Y) and DC-8-71 (18F and 194Y).
Where previously the emphasis was on fleet standardization and a minimum number of aircraft types to reduce crew training, maintenance, and spare parts inventories, then-emerging megacarriers such as Delta, which by definition served routes of all lengths and densities, from the 100-mile feeder sector to high-capacity transcontinental and intercontinental travel, required a wide range of types and versions, as one integrated airline had to do the job of Many: Commuter, Large Regional, US National, Major, and Mega Carrier. .
As a result, four major US regional flights, operating as Delta Connection, collectively offered 3,900 daily departures to 240 cities in addition to Delta’s mainline flights and included Atlantic Southeast Airlines with DHC-7, SD3-60, EMB-120 and EMB-110, Business Express with F.27, SD3-60, S-340 and B1900), Comair with S-3 40, Fairchild Swear ingen Meters and EMB-110 and Skywest with EMB-120 and Swearingen Meters on this occasion.
Once the world’s largest TriStar operator, with three versions and two minor variants, Delta, deeming it the “queen of the fleet,” placed its initial order for 24 L-1011-s in 1968 to complement its existing DC-8s, but offering increased widebody comfort and quieter, more fuel-efficient high-bypass-ratio turbofans, once announcing, “The magnificent $18 million TriStar, the newest member of Delta Air Lines fleet. It left most of its other American carrier competitors, including American, Continental, National, Northwest, United, and Western, to order the competing DC-10-10.
Forced to intermittently operate five of the McDonnell-Douglas counterparts due to the cessation of Rolls Royce’s bankruptcy program, he eventually sold them to United, though they were leased between 1972 and 1975. He also deployed 747-100s on his transcontinental routes before that. Its capacity, in the event, dwarfed the demand.
His first L-1011-1, registered as N701DA, was configured for 50 first class and 200 economy class passengers. But it was just the beginning of a story with a guy who would become synonymous with the Atlanta-based airline, with 40 more acquired between 1973 and 1983.
Because its route system consisted mostly of short to medium-range sectors, it was airborne for about two hours at a time, connecting cities less than 1,000 miles apart.
Exceeding the range of its first transatlantic route award, from Atlanta to London-Gatwick, it was supplemented by two L-1011-100s leased from TWA, and these were eventually also deployed to Frankfurt and Tokyo.
In 1980, he received three truly intercontinental L-1011-500s.
A pre-owned TriStar acquisition program proved extensive. Fourteen L-1011-500s (six from Air Canada, three from Pan Am and five from United) were purchased between 1984 and 1992 and ten L-1011-1s were purchased from Eastern between 1991 and 1992.
In addition to leasing two L-1011-200s powered by RB.211-524B engines, he modified one L-1011-1 to standard -200 and the remaining six configurations to -250, allowing each to operate longer-range sectors.
Instrumental in servicing the transatlantic European routes it acquired from Pan Am, with up to 80 daily flights in the summer of 1992, the type, in its -500 form, regularly made the longest 5,074-mile Anchorage-Hong Kong trans-Pacific crossing.
Although budget constraints prevented Lockheed from offering what could have been the ultimate replacement in the form of the extended L-1011-400, the type continued to sail on Delta’s route system until only about 30 daily flights were counted for TriStar service in late 2000, having taken progressive replacements such as the Boeing 767-200, -300 and -400 and the MD-11, perhaps the ultimate triumph. from McDonnell-Douglas about Lock. attention ed.
First delivered in November 1979, the N728DA aircraft, an L-1011-1, operated Delta’s last scheduled flight, from Atlanta to Orlando and back, on July 31, 2001, receiving a double water cannon salute after landing on Georgia soil. He had flown nearly 31,000 flight cycles, 66,000 hours, and more than 27 million miles during his career.
The 70 TriStars of all versions that Delta had eventually operated for more than a quarter century represented 30 percent of Lockheed’s total production.