Slick Airways
Slick Airways was a cargo airline from the United States, that operated scheduled and chartered flights between 1946 and 1966. The airline was founded by Earl Slick, a Texas aviator and multimillionaire who along with his brother had inherited $25 million (around $324 million in 2015 currency) after their father's death in 1930. History. The airline was formed in January 1946 as the air cargo division of the Slick Corporation, headquartered in San Antonio. Slick Airways had its original fleet of Curtiss C-46 Commando aircraft based at Lockheed Air Terminal (Burbank) and San Francisco Airport . In 1949, scheduled freighter flights to domestic destinations were commenced, and by 1951, the company had become the largest all-cargo airline of the United States. On 16 April of that year, Slick Airways became the first airline to operate the freighter variant of the Douglas DC-6 (the passenger variant had been introduced with United Airlines five days earlier). In 1954, Slick Airways went into merger talks with Flying Tigers because of the increasing competition by passenger airlines, which failed because the respective shareholders would not approve of these plans. In 1958, the company was forced to suspend all scheduled  services, though it continued to operate charter flights on behalf of the United States Armed Forces, also to European destinations. A fleet of newly built Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation airliners went into service with the airline during 1959, initially being used to fly military freight from Travis Air Force Base near Sacramento to Japan. This operation was supplemented by Canadair CL-44s from 1962. In October 1962 scheduled flights were resumed, when Slick Airways was granted permanent permission to operate its transcontinental "Route 101". The trunk routing went from either San Francisco or Burbank to Dallas, St. Louis, Chicago, Indianapolis and  New York City and was operated using the Lockheed Super Constellation. The DC-6 was used on side routes. Additionally, Slick Airways operated on so called "Quicktrans" domestic routes on behalf of the United States Navy. In 1965, the L-1049 was withdrawn from the Route 101 in favor of the CL-44. On 27 August 1965, scheduled flights once again were discontinued because of the poor financial situation of Slick Airways, and military charter flights were terminated by the end of the year. On 1 July 1966, Slick Airways was shut down, and the assets were acquired by Airlift International. Fleet. Over  the years, Slick Airways operated the following aircraft types: Accidents and incidents. Slick Airways suffered nine accidents resulting in an aircraft being damaged beyond repair. In total, 19 people lost their lives.