Pacific Southwest Airlines: The World’s First Low Cost Airline

Pacific Southwest Airlines was the world’s first low cost airline, paving the way for a new kind of air travel. Due to this, it was one of the most successful and largest airlines of its day.

Eventually, PSA and the idea of low cost carriers grew so much that USAir, the precursor to US Airways, bought PSA. Subsequently, USAir tried to curtail PSA’s powers by making it a regional airline.

Pre-Formation

Kenny Friedkin had been interested in aviation since he was eight years old, after going to an air show for the first time in 1923. As with many young boys of his era (and since 1903!), he wanted to be a pilot.

At the age of 17, Friedkin financed his own pilot’s lessons and gained his pilot’s license a few weeks later. With the onset of WWII, Friedkin enlisted in the US Army Air Corps as a pilot, flying sorties across Europe.

Upon returning home in 1945, Friedkin decided that he wanted to become an entrepreneur and a pilot. To do this, he established Friedkin Aeronautics Inc. in 1945 as a holdings company for his various ventures.

Throughout the mid-to-late 1940’s, Friedkin tried almost every type of aviation-related business he could think of, some of which failed, where others were incredibly successful.

In 1945, Friendkin established his own flight school, being his first true business after coming home from war. Here, he and two friends taught people how to fly, many of whom became airline pilots.

This gave Freidkin the idea to establish his own charter airline, Friedkin Airlines. This airline was short lived, but its impact was not lost on Freidkin who soon learned from his mistakes and tried again…

Formation

Following the demise of Freidkin Airlines, Kenny Freidkin spoke to several travel agents in the San Diego area. These travel agents gave Freidkin valuable insight into the airline industry, in exchange for Freidkin’s business.

In 1949, Kenny Freidkin established his new airline, which he called Pacific Southwest Airlines (however, marketed the airline as PSA). The airline’s first aircraft was leased Douglas DC-3, which costed Freidkin $1,000 per month.

The airline was headquartered at San Diego International Airport, with a former US Army latrine being refitted to serve as PSA’s ticket office. Originally, the DC-3 operated a weekly round trip from San Diego to Oakland via Burbank.

In 1951, PSA traded its Oakland operations for operations in San Francisco. Following this expansion, in 1955, PSA traded its sole DC-3 in favor for two DC-4s leased from Capital Airlines. These DC-4s were painted to resemble DC-6s.

Over the course of the mid-to-late 1950’s, PSA continued to expand, adding more DC-4s to its fleet. At the time, PSA was charging $9.99 ($128 today) for a ticket, compared to the $22.05 charged by other carriers like Western Airlines.

In 1958, PSA began to consolidate its hub at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) by shifting flights away from Burbank. By late 1959, PSA had bought 94-seat Lockheed L-188s to replace their 70-seat DC-4s.

1960’s

The 1960’s saw Pacific Southwest Airlines completely rebrand itself. Here, the airline began to have PSA solely on their aircraft, rather than the main logo saying PSA and then “Pacific Southwest Airlines” being underneath it.

On top of this, PSA began to paint its infamous smiles on the front of their aircraft, as well as adopting the slogan “The World’s Friendliest Airline”. Flight attendants too got new uniforms, as well as becoming known for their customer service!

In 1963, PSA received its sixth and final Lockheed L-188 Electra. At the same time, PSA was the largest airline in the Los Angeles and Bay Areas, carrying over 1.3 million people in 1963 alone!

By the mid-1960’s, jet airliners had become all the rage. PSA, as with almost every other American airline, had begun to phase out their older piston and turboprop airliners in favor of newer jet airliners.

In 1965, PSA took possession of their first Boeing 727-114s, Boeing 727-214s, Boeing 737-214s and McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30s, which would be delivered between 1965 and 1970.

The mid-to-late 1960’s continued to see PSA expand, adding San Jose in 1966 and Sacramento Executive Airport in 1967, before moving to the newly built Sacramento International Airport in 1968.

1968 also saw PSA add Ontario, California as well as being the only California-based, intrastate airline to use the offshore V25 airway (which is over the Pacific Ocean).

1970’s

The early 1970’s saw PSA continue to expand, adding routes to Long Beach, Fresno and Stockton. 1975 saw PSA take possession of two Lockheed L-1011 TriStar widebody aircraft, being the only intrastate airline to operate widebodies.

1975 also saw the return of Pacific Southwest Airlines’ Electra fleet. These aircraft were brought out of storage to be used on PSA’s newly acquired Lake Tahoe route, operating it until 1979.

In 1978, the US Congress passed the Airline Deregulation Act. This saw government-imposed prices on interstate routes lifted. This was the main reason that Pacific Southwest Airlines hadn’t expanded out of California.

With that restriction now lifted, PSA began to set up new routes, most notably expanding to Reno, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Tucson and Albuquerque, among others.

The airline’s first international route was to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico although this route was short lived, being available only in 1979. This route would serve as the airline’s only international route.

Following this, taking a page out of Morris Air’s book, PSA began to implement e-ticketing and automated check-ins at most of the airports they operated from. The last of these would be completed before the USAir-PSA buyout.

1980’s

In 1982, Braniff International collapsed due to high competition, high fuel prices and high credit card interest rates. Many airlines vied to pick up the remains of Braniff’s empire, including PSA.

Later that same year, talks between PSA and Braniff’s administrators broke down. From that, PSA decided to expand once again, this time into the Northwestern United States, including Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

In 1984, PSA bought a small fleet of BAe 146’s from British Aerospace. These BAe 146’s would serve smaller, noise-restricted airports like Eureka, California and Concord, California with less demand.

The mid-1980’s saw PSA looking to expand once again, this time looking to become a major carrier, rivaling the likes of American Airlines, Delta and Pan Am. This would’ve been done through expanding eastward and then internationally.

However, the mid-1980’s also saw a period of huge airline consolidation. The post-Airline Deregulation industry had been littered with startup airlines looking to become the next Pan Am, with many larger ones buying them up.

This saw Delta purchase Western Airlines and American Airlines purchase AirCal, both of PSA’s largest Californian competitors. PSA feared that this would hamper their own growth or force them out of the market.

As a result, USAir, Delta and American’s largest competitor was looking for an airline to buyout, and PSA was looking to be bought out. In 1987, USAir bought PSA, slowly integrating them until 1988.

Today

Despite PSA having been absorbed into USAir and later US Airways (today American Airlines), there is still a Pacific Southwest Airlines operating regularly scheduled passenger flights.

No, this is not something akin to the new Eastern Airlines or one of the many new Pan Ams. Nor is it a new airline operated by former PSA pilots, fed up of the corporate bureaucracy at USAir/US Airways/American.

Instead, it is a completely unrelated airline, also operated by American. In 1995, the trademarks for the PSA brand were coming up for renewal. American tried to renew them, however stumbled upon a legal issue.

A large part of American copyright and trademark law states that you have to be using the trademark in order to renew it, something that American was not. For professional reasons, American worried about losing the trademark.

The result was that an American subsidiary with an obscure brand name few could recognize, was chosen for a makeover. The airline, Jetstream International Airlines, had previously been a Piedmont Airlines subsidiary.

Since then, JIA has been known as PSA Airlines. However, this airline has a completely different logo, livery and corporate culture. Unlike the original PSA, the modern incarnation is a regional airline for American Eagle.

What Was it Like to Fly on PSA?

As usual when I cover defunct airlines, I interviewed several people who flew on PSA, both before and during its height, as I never flew on the airline myself.

Gareth Seagull, one of International Aviation HQ’s senior contributors, and former A320 captain, flew on the airline several times. When I interviewed him about the airline, he had this to say about it:

I flew on PSA several times prior to its “proper” height, flying with my parents during the mid-to-late 1970’s. For the most part, I flew on two of my favorite aircraft of all times, the Boeing 727 and Lockheed L-1011 TriStar.

Naturally, as I was a kid, I wasn’t really focusing too much on the aesthetics and such. However, I remember walking up to captain and watching him and the co-pilot for almost the entire flight.

I found the captain and co-pilot to be incredibly courteous, answering every question about the aircraft and being a pilot I had. The flight attendants too were very polite, which made me, a three year old, want to become a pilot!

As I got older, I got more curious about flying, often going up to the pilot before and after the flight and bombarding them with millions of questions, which they answered every time.

Looking back on it now, as a pilot, I found that for the most part, the flights were relatively smooth. Unlike most low cost carriers who have a very hard landing to conserve fuel, PSA had smooth landing.

All in all, PSA was incredibly professional. Had they still been going today, I would’ve probably flown for them, or I would’ve at least tried to fly on them at least once with my own children!

How Safe Was Pacific Southwest Airlines?

Despite having not operated under its own name since 1987, it is still quite important to find out what Pacific Southwest Airlines was a safe or dangerous airline to fly on.

Overall, PSA was considered to be quite a safe airline. In its 39 year history, PSA had only four accidents, with only two being fatal, resulting in only 180 fatalities.

Of the two fatal crashes, one was due to a hijacking (by an enraged former PSA employee) and the other was down to pilot error. Other than this, PSA was incredibly safe.

With that being said, PSA did have a serious issue with hijackers (which inadvertently led to the create of Federal Air Marshal Service). Where only one was successful, there were three more that were not.

For the most part, there were no fatalities or serious physical injuries, with the hijacker being apprehended or killed.

In terms of the aircraft PSA operated, most of them were some of the safest aircraft of their time. PSA was among the first US airlines to adopt the first generation of jet airliners, most of which were incredibly dangerous aircraft.

However, for PSA in particular, this didn’t play a very big role in the safety of the airline. The other two accidents (where there were no fatalities) were down to pilot error.

Legacy

Despite Pacific Southwest Airlines having not operated for almost 40 years, it has left an incredibly large impact on the airline industry as a whole!

Airline Industry

Pacific Southwest Airlines was the world’s first true low cost airline. Many of the subsequent low cost airlines turned to PSA for inspiration and guidance, not to mention many copy-pasting their business model!

In recent years, low cost airlines have dealt a large blow to most major airlines, including American Airlines, who merged with US Airways in 2015. Today, most new airlines are low cost carriers.

On top of this, Pacific Southwest Airlines were also the kings of marketing in the airline industry. Where today, many low cost carriers are among the most hated airlines in the world, people genuinely loved PSA.

PSA pioneered the technique of directly marketing to passengers. Whilst this may seem obvious today, it wasn’t in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Today, most airlines do this sort of marketing.

Southwest Airlines

Southwest founders Herb Keller and Rollin King paid close attention to the early rise and successes of PSA. This, in turn, inspired them to do the same with their own airline in Texas.

However, Herb Keller and Rollin King also saw the issues with PSA and made sure to exclude them from the airline they were planning to launch. Eventually, this airline became Southwest Airlines.

The same things that made PSA so successful also helped to make Southwest Airlines so successful too. Arguably, without PSA, there would be no Southwest, at least not as we know it today.

Many early Southwest mechanics and pilots were trained by PSA as well. Keller and King couldn’t afford to get flight manuals and other vital items, instead, PSA willingly lent them!

USAir

USAir purchased PSA in 1987, with the PSA brand being completely phased out by 1988. With this, all PSA aircraft and staff became USAir, and later US Airways employees.

Many former PSA pilots and staff were placed on short haul routes, with it occasionally operating regional routes as well. Many former PSA mechanics were placed on USAir-owned aircraft, leading to them painting smiles on them as a joke.

Today, many former junior PSA pilots are now senior captains, most of whom are flying American Airlines aircraft (following the 2015 American Airlines-US Airways merger).

In 2005, following US Airways’ merger with America West Airlines, a special aircraft livery was placed on a US Airways A319. This was one of four aircraft commemorating the four airlines that merged into US Airways.

Other liveries included Allegheny Airlines, America West and Piedmont Airlines.

Did you ever fly on Pacific Southwest Airlines? What was it like? Tell me in the comments!

Featured image courtesy of Aero Icarus via Flickr.