Braniff One-Eleven
N1541 aloft from
Hurn on a pre-
delivery test f light.
KEY C
Mohawk & Aloha
The second US operator of the BAC 1-11 was Mohawk
Airlines, a mid-Atlantic regional carrier serving mostly
Pennsylvania and New York state.
Mohawk announced an initial order for four series -204s on
July 24, 1962 and, like most local service carriers, received a
government subsidy to help fund the purchase. The first jet
(N2111J) was delivered on May 15, 1965 and after crew training
and route proving, it was used for demonstration flights for key
corporate accounts such as IBM.
A typical in-service run for a Mohawk BAC 1-11 was Boston- Windsor Locks – Rochester – Buffalo – Toronto and, with an
extremely positive public reception, the fleet eventually grew to
21 airframes. At weekends, the airline offered unlimited system-
wide travel “Fly anywhere you like!” for $25 (the equivalent of
$149 in 2018 money).
Seeing the success of the Braniff and Mohawk aircraft, the next
US airline to order the type was Hawaii’s Aloha Airlines. A deal
for two series -215s was placed on March 15, 1965, with the first
(N11181) delivered just over a year later on April 15, 1966.
When N11182 arrived on June 8, Aloha’s president Kenneth
FC Char flew out to meet it over the Pacific aboard sistership
N11181. An Aloha Viscount flew alongside, full of reporters
and photographers to capture the sight of Aloha’s first jets flying
side-by-side. A third machine was ordered in October 1966 and
delivered on May 31 the following year.
Sectors across Aloha’s inter-island network were very short
and averaged just 25 minutes. As such, N11181 completed its
10,000th flight just 803 days after delivery.
Despite the intense utilisation, only 1% of flights were delayed
for a technical problem, leading Char to famously proclaim:
“The after-sales service given to Aloha on the BAC 1-11
and Viscount is the finest service ever given to Aloha by
any manufacturer.”
However, rising traffic levels meant Aloha needed bigger
aircraft, and with the stretched BAC 1-11-500 still a few years
away, the airline opted instead for 737-200s, off-loading its
British jets to Mohawk in early 1969.Allegheny & USAir
Regional carrier Allegheny Airlines had an operational hub
in Pittsburgh and a corporate HQ at Washington National
Airport. In 1972 it took over Mohawk Airlines, an acquisition
that included 21 of its BAC 1-11s. In anticipation of the merger,
Allegheny also bought ten examples from Braniff, creating a
substantial fleet of 31 machines.
Allegheny’s BAC 1-11 operation was a continuation of
Mohawk’s, with intensive short sectors and fast turnarounds in
the mid-Atlantic states. As the 1970s progressed, deregulation
of the domestic airline industry loomed, and Allegheny
management felt the name, relating to the Appalachian
mountain range, was too parochial for an airline with
nationwide aspirations. The carrier was therefore rebranded as
USAir in 1979.
The group later bought PSA (Pacific Southwest Airlines) in
California and Piedmont Airlines in the southeast, effectively
creating a national network carrier. BAC 1-11 service by USAir
ended on August 16, 1989, the day before the operational
merger with Piedmont.B • The
second US operator
of the BAC 1-11 was
Mohawk Airlines. Its
f irst jet was N2111J,
seen here being rolled
out at Hurn on March
27, 1965. It was
delivered to the USA
the following May.
A M B
C
Florida Express
was an enthusiastic
operator of second-
hand BAC 1-11s,
mostly sourced from
British Caledonian,
Dan-Air and USAir.
N171FE ended its life
in Romania and was
broken up in 2006.
T S
C
AT weekends Mohawk offered
‘Fly anywhere you like!’ for $25
http://www.airlinerworld.com 55