Indulge me.................Please?

[tolivac]

Air-Way-Charlie:Interesting collection of airline uniforms!
In older times I remember Western Airlines-Rode on them from Rapid city S.dak to the twin cities to catch other flights.I LOVED riding Western--At the time they used 4 engine Lockheed Electras-now THAT was an airplane-was exciting when the engines were started and reved up in turn.then the flight--YOU COULD SIT IN ANY CHAIR YOU WANT!!I changed places a lot to get the views.Many times the pilot would circle the "Badlands" outside of Rapid-was beautiful!They didn't mind when riders crowded on one side to get the view.And they served GOOD food on those trips.these were "milk run" or "bus run flights-you got on or off at your "stop"places like Aberdeen,Watertown,Pierre,Soux Falls.Many people didn't like these flights-I LOVED them-and miss them so much.Made flying FUN instead of the droll and boring thing its now.Later they replaced the Electras with boing 737's-but the flights were still fun-and the looks at the Badlands.also loved the "Indian" logo on the nose of the plane.I had ridden many flights into and out of Rapid City-but these were my favorites.

 

[air-waycharlie]

More Braniff

Here is the whole BN uniform collection and keep in mind this is what I have saved after giving/selling a lot of it off. Space is a premimum.

This first group is Pucci I through Pucci VI. To the far left is the "Puccino" a serving garment that goes with the Air-Strip at the beginning of this thread. Then is Pucci II and III done in pinks and cranberrys. Note the silver metalic serving garment--also came in metalic pink and blue. Then Pucci IV, V, and VI when the blues and greens were used. There were so many items and combinations it is beyond imagination.

They even had purses, gloves, umbrellas, luggage, hats, etc. all done by Pucci in the colors you see here. The scarves are a work of air in and of themselves.

 

[air-waycharlie]

Pucci I & II

A closer look.

 

[air-waycharlie]

Pucci III, IV & V

The change to the blues and greens in the famous Pucci patterns.

 

[air-waycharlie]

Braniff Wings

The gold dove could be worn as a necklace as well as pinned to the uniforms.

 

[air-waycharlie]

Halston arrives

The Halston uniforms debuted in the fall of 1977. Quite a change. Very classic and there were many more pieces than I have pictured here. Beautiful lutra suede topcoats were issued with Hartmann luggage. (No wonder they were first in bankruptcy)

 

[air-waycharlie]

Delta by request

This is the only Delta uniform I have. It is from the mid 1980's and already the monocromatic blue is starting. Yawn.

Scott,
Just a note, Western was purchased by Delta in 1986. Northwest purchased Republic around that time. Republic was a merger of Southern Airways of Atlanta, North Central Airlines of Detroit, and Hughes AirWest of San Francisco.

 

[scott55405]

Thanks Charlie! It would figure I would mix something up. At least I know now that there was a Southern! LOL I didn't realize Western had survived that long. My father always listened to one of those old line AM radio stations and they and Northwest (Orient) Airlines were advertised heavily on it in the 70s.

Thanks for the great additional pictures!

 

[kevinpreston4]

Speaking of airlines

When I was younger the airline industry fascinated me. I used to get the paper airline schedules during the summer, and as planes went overhead I would try to figure out what flight number they were. I was close enough to the planes that with binoculars, it was great fun to finally figure out the airline.

The colors of the airlines were interesting, and it's obvious it carried over to all elements of design, including outfits. I love the colors of planes like what Braniff would do. Does anyone remember in the 60s that Braniff would have, for example, an all-yellow plane, and you would see it parked next to an all-orange one? Very cool.

I was on a very early 747 flight(about 1971) when United used one on a relatively short flight from Denver to Chicago. It was so fun to be on that plane going, but coming back on a standard 727 seemed so small.

I flew a number of planes as a kid going with my parents to visit relatives. I remember when they still had DC-8s, and I even flew on a Convair 880. Those went out many years ago. Even at the time my mom had never heard of that plane, and asked my dad "is this one safe?"

Here are some airlines for the memory:

Hughes Airwest
PSA
Piedmont
TWA
Braniff
Eastern
National Airlines
Pan Am
Western

 

[air-waycharlie]

More for the list

Great post Kevin. Here are a few more for the list:

Alaska
Ozark
Allegheny
Frontier (the original)
Northeast
Lake Central
Mohawk
Empire
Southern
Air Florida
Midway
Capital--scheduled carrier, merged into UA
Capitol--started as supplemental carrier became scheduled
Air Cal
Bonaza
Texas International

Then after de-reg a ton of them came and went. Too many to start listing!

 

[whirlcool]

And let's not forget North Central..

that's who I started out with. They were the largest of the "regional" carriers. Their logo was a mallard duck flying across the sun or the moon, whichever point of view you wanted to take.

Loading…

www.hermantheduck.org

 

[frigilux]

oh.my.freaking.GOD.

I...I'm not even sure what to say about your collection. It is perhaps the most unique thing I've ever seen. If I composed a list of 1,000,000,000 ideas for collections, I dare say 'stewardess uniforms' would never enter my mind.

It's really pretty cool, airway-charlie. I'm just a little bit stunned, is all.

I once dropped acid on a flight in 1975, and if the stewardess had approached me in a uniform like the one in pic #1, you'd have had to pull me off the ceiling!

 

[whirlcool]

North Central Airlines was a MSP based company, not Detroit. They had the green concourse at MSP.

 

[tolivac]

Also another flights I took when I lived in Rapid City-Was North Central-They had the "Duck" logo on the tails of their Conviar 580's- twin engine prop plane-in those days-like Western you could sit anywhere on the plane-and those too were "milk run" flights-made about the same stops as Western.they were good and fun to ride.It seemed that the airline flights in and out of the Rapid City area were the older planes-and some passengers used them as "flying pickup trucks"Remember tractor parts and yes-even a chain saw put into the overhead compartments.Can you imagine what would happen today if someone tried to bring a chain saw onto the plane?Was fun seeing what other passengers brought with them.
these flights were in the 60's and and into the early 70's.