page_title: Pacific Southwest Airlines
section_title: Historic fleet
hierarchical_section_title: Pacific Southwest Airlines / Fleet / Historic fleet
caption_attribution_description: English: Lockheed L-1011 TriStar N1079 at Palmdale plant before to be delivered to Pacific Southwest Airlines in 1974. This aircraft was operated by PSA for only two years before being returned to Lockheed, who subsequently sold them to Aero Peru, which later again returned them to the manufacturer. It ultimately ended up with World Way Canada and was broken up for spare parts.
context_page_description: Pacific Southwest Airlines was a United States airline headquartered in San Diego, California, that operated from 1949 to 1988. It was the first large discount airline in the United States. PSA called itself "The World's Friendliest Airline" and painted a smile on the nose of its airplanes, the PSA Grinningbirds. Opinion L.A. of the Los Angeles Times called PSA "practically the unofficial flag carrier airline of California for almost forty years."
  The airline initially operated as an intrastate airline wholly within the state of California. This strategy which avoided the steep costs from federal regulation would later serve as the model for Southwest Airlines, doing in Texas what PSA had done in California. After the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, PSA expanded to cities in other western states, and eventually to several cities in Mexico.
  In 1986 PSA became the first of two airlines that merged into the existing USAir, followed by Piedmont Airlines in 1987. The PSA acquisition was completed in 1988. USAir changed its name to US Airways in 1997.
context_section_description: Historic PSA fleet:
  PSA continued to operate the DC-4/C-54 for charter flights until 1961.
  The L-1011 "Mother Grinningbirds" which PSA had removed from scheduled service were leased to other airlines and companies until they were sold in 1985 to Worldways Canada.
  PSA operated a single DC-6B between 1960 and 1961 to Oakland, California while awaiting the delivery of an Electra.
  Historic PSA fleet details:
caption: PSA Lockheed L-1011 TriStar before delivery
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