Deregulation Darlings
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Showing posts tagged travel
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AirCal started out in 1967 as Air California, serving points in the Golden State from their base at Santa Ana Airport (now known as John Wayne Orange County Airport). After Deregulation went into effect, their route network expanded to points as far away as Seattle, Vancouver, Portland, Phoenix, and Reno while they were embroiled in an intense rivalry with Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA).
American Airlines bought out and absorbed AirCal in 1987.
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Another commercial from the “You’ll Like Our Style” campaign, rattling off some of the destinations AirCal served in the early 1980s.
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The low noise profile of the British Aerospace 146 was ideal for AirCal, whose main hub of John Wayne Airport was notorious for it’s noise restrictions and abatement procedures on account of the surrounding wealthy suburbs.
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Shortly after the 1987 merger, American used an interim livery of painting over the AirCal titlings and replacing them with the American sans serifs.
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Pacific Southwest Airlines was formed in 1949 and headquartered at Lindbergh Field in San Diego, California. Already known for frequent service, low fares, and few frills, PSA became a big player out West when Deregulation went into effect.
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PSA Airline 1985 TV commercial (by robatsea2009)
PSA, taking the piss from it’s competition. All airlines depicted would eventually be involved in mergers. PSA itself would be bought in 1988 by USAir (furthermore known as US Airways).
On another note, “five-across seating” was a standard feature in McDonnell-Douglas MD-80 aircraft, which was a common type used by PSA. The MD-80’s fuselage wasn’t wide enough to accommodate six-across seating like in Boeing narrowbodies.
