FlyShip Airways

Founded: March 23rd 1931(as Mi-Air-Mi)

Ceased operations:January 21st 2002

Flight no.(IATA):VA

               (ICAO):VAL

Callsign:SkyCruise

## Hubs

Atlanta(1931-2002)

 New York-JFK(1939-2002)

Anchorage(1952-2002)

 San Francisco(1934-2002)

Philadelphia(1931-2002)

 Miami(1931-2002)

Chicago-O'Hare(1944-2002)

## Focus cities

Honolulu

Los Angeles

Las Vegas

Paris-CDG

Hong Kong

## History

Originally starting out as Mi-Air-Mi, the airline flew Fokker F-10s on Miami-Jacksonville and Miami-Houston routes. In 1933, looking to secure an airmail contract, It was decided the Mi-Air-Mi would merge with other small airlines Atlanta Airways and Philadelphia Connections. After the merger and acquisition of the contract, the airline started Airmail services from Miami to Atlanta and Philadelphia to Washington DC to New York on Boeing 247s. After the 1934 Airmail scandals, Mi-Air-Mi changed to passenger operations. With Boeing 247s on Miami-Jacksonville and Miami-Houston routes. The airline established a hub at San Francisco shortly after and introduced Douglas DC-2s on San Francisco-Los Angeles routes, and Philadelphia-New York routes. On 1935, the airline made its international flight, from miami to Kingston on by a Consolidated Commodore, First introduced in 1932. This started the company's path to success. On 1936, the introduction of the Douglas DC-3 revolutionised air travel and helped expand the airline's domestic routes. The airline officially changed its name in 1939 to FlyShip Airways after it took delivery of Boeing 314s for long haul International flights. It also established Hubs at New York-Idlewild as a major gateway to Europe. Its first flight to Asia, San Francisco-Honolulu-Tokyo, was inaugurated by the Boeing 314. The Boeing 314 was retired in 1943 as the dc-4 took over the tokyo route. With Douglas DC-4s, in 1943, Voyager Airlines expanded to Latin America, like Venezuela, Brazil, and Mexico. It also allowed the airline to fly to London and Paris. Competing with Pan American World Airways, the airline promised cheaper ticket prices and a more comfortable experience. As such, they started naming their planes with the initials "LuxLiner" to reflect this. The airline contributed to transport in world war 2, paving the way for more routes. In 1948 the Douglas DC-6 displaced the DC-4 from international routes as the DC-4 was reduced to domestic flights. In the 50s, the airline chose Las Vegas as a focus city due to the rise of its casino industry. Also in the Lockheed Super Constellation and DC-7s were delivered to the airline. The airline started cargo operations with the DC-7F. Super Constellations paved the way to many more flights to Asia. The DC-7s inaugurated the JFK-Cairo route. In an attempt keep up with competition with Pan Am, Voyager Airlines introduced its own "round the world" route, operating four times a year, twice in January and twice in December, in 1959 with the route being New York-Dakar-London-Frankfurt-Cairo-New Delhi-Hong Kong-Tokyo using Douglas DC-7. The 60s brought the airline into the jet with Boeing 707s and DC-8 replacing many routes. In However, a mid-air collision in 1966 between a Lockheed Super Constellation from the airline and a Japan Airlines Convair 880 significantly deprived Voyager Airlines of customers, losing to other airlines. In the 70s, the Wide-body airliners came into play, despite having already lost the lead from the 1966 collision,Voyager Airlines ordered Boeing 747s to keep up with Pan Am and TWA. With the introduction of the 747, the airlines expanded its round the world route to New York(JFK)-CDG-Frankfurt-Cairo-Delhi-Tokyo-San Francisco. It also ordered DC-10s and Lockheed L-1011s. However the US oil crisis would make further losses for the airline, with so many quad engined aircraft and fewer twin engined aircraft, the airlines suffered huge losses and had to cancel their round the world flights. It had also placed orders for the concorde but didn't due to the spike in oil prices. It also caused the Convair 880 to be retired in 1973. In 1978, the airline deregulation act heavily impacted the airline even more. Despite this, the airline still wanted to operate the concorde, so on 1980, Voyager Airlines leased a concorde from British Airways for seasonal flights to London-Heathrow. But this would prove to be a very unwise decision, generating millions of losses, so Voyager Airlines ended the lease contract early, less then a few months of operating the supersonic airliner, in mid 1981. But this was not the only challenge the airline was facing. The rise of low-cost carriers was stealing previous customers of the airline. In 1982, Voyager Airlines invested more into their cargo industry, seeing that they were being crushed by their competitors in the passenger market. While this did see some success, they quickly lost, due to the rise of giants like UPS and FedEx, which only added to the airline's financial burdens. In 1990, the company suffered a far larger loss after a mid-air collision in Miami between two Voyager aircraft that year, especially when investigation concluded that the airline was cutting corners even if they risked safety in order to pay back its debt, such as the case in the 1990 collision as one of the planes, a Douglas DC-8, had intentionally not been installed with TCAS as "They were about to be retired anyways". The company terminated many routes seen as unprofitable and selling "excess" aircraft or outright scrapping them, in an attempt to recover. Still, the company was loaded with debt. It filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1990, restructuring from 1990 to 1991. However, this would be short lived. The advent of 9/11 in 2001 and the crash of flight 774 that occured just a month later, linked to improper maintenance, would be the final straw for Voyager Airlines. After a failed attempt to merge with United Airlines on January 9th 2002, It filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy on January 21st 2002, completely ceasing operations. American Airlines and United airlines would both absorb FlyShip Airway's assets, with a majority going to American Airlines.

## Fleet

this shows both the airline's retired fleet and the present fleet it had before liquidating