The company that would become Piedmont Airlines was founded by
Thomas Henry Davis (March 15, 1918 – April 22, 1999) in
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1940, when Davis purchased Camel City Flying Service and changed the name to Piedmont Aviation. Piedmont originally operated as an airplane repair service and a training school for pilots in the War Department Civilian Pilot Training Program. In 1944, Davis filed an application to run a passenger flight service in the southeast. After several years of lobbying government agencies and fighting legal challenges from other airlines, Piedmont received authorization on January 1, 1948. The first flight, from
Wilmington, North Carolina, to
Cincinnati, was on February 20, 1948. Davis grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. As a child, he loved airplanes and often used his allowance to take flying lessons. He took
pre-med classes at the
University of Arizona. In August 1953 it scheduled flights to 26 airports and in May 1968 to 47. Like other Local Service airlines, Piedmont was subsidized; in 1962, its operating "revenues" of $18.2 million included $4.8 million "Pub. serv. rev."
The jet age Piedmont's first jet flights took off in March 1967: 92-seat
Boeing 727-100s on such routes as Atlanta - Asheville - Winston-Salem - Roanoke - New York
LaGuardia Airport.
Boeing 737-200s arrived in 1968; six 727-100s were added from 1977, and in June 1981 the airline added the
Boeing 727-200. Piedmont's fleet was all-turbine after the last Martin 4-0-4 piston powered flights in 1972 and all-jet after the last NAMC YS-11 turboprop flights in 1982 (one 727-100 that Piedmont bought from
Northwest Orient Airlines was the aircraft hijacked by
D. B. Cooper).
Fokker F28 Fellowship jets were added to the fleet as well as
Boeing 737-300s,
737-400s and
767-200ERs.
Route expansion In 1949 the network extended from Cincinnati and Louisville east to Norfolk and points south. The map reached Knoxville in 1951–1952, Columbus OH and Washington DC in 1955, Atlanta and Baltimore in 1962, New York La Guardia in 1966, Nashville and Memphis in 1968 and Chicago Midway in December 1969. In 1978, still under U.S. route regulation, Piedmont added Boston, Denver, and Miami. Flights to Dallas/Ft. Worth and Tampa began in 1979 followed by Houston in January 1980 and New Orleans in 1982. In 1984 Los Angeles and San Francisco were added followed by Minneapolis/St. Paul in 1985, Montreal and Ottawa with the
Empire Airlines merger in July 1986, and Seattle, Phoenix and San Diego in 1987. In 1988 the airline was serving a new international destination, Nassau, Bahamas and by 1989 was flying to Bermuda and nonstop between Los Angeles and Baltimore, Charlotte, Dayton, and Tampa; nonstop between San Francisco and Charlotte, Dayton and Kansas City; nonstop between Phoenix and Baltimore and Charlotte; and nonstop between Seattle and Charlotte Shortly before the merger with USAir in 1989, Piedmont had hubs at Baltimore, Charlotte, Dayton and Syracuse.
Deregulation at
London Gatwick Airport in 1988 After deregulation in the late 1970s the airline grew rapidly and developed a hub at
Charlotte/Douglas International Airport in
Charlotte, North Carolina. Piedmont bought
Empire Airlines, based in
Utica, New York, in 1985 which brought more
Fokker F28 Fellowships into the fleet. Shortly before it was acquired by USAir, Piedmont was the first airline to announce fleet-wide adoption of the
Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS). These operations were identified by several different names including Piedmont Commuter System, Piedmont Shuttle Link and The Piedmont Regional Airline. Turboprop aircraft operated by these airlines included the
Beechcraft 99,
Beechcraft 1900C,
British Aerospace BAe Jetstream 31,
de Havilland Canada DHC-7 Dash 7,
de Havilland Canada DHC-8 Dash 8,
Fokker F-27-600,
Saab 340,
Short 330 and
Short 360.
Absorption into USAir Piedmont's expanding route system, its loyal passenger following, and its profitability caused it to gain notice among other airlines for a potential buyout. On August 5, 1989, Piedmont Airlines was absorbed by
USAir (formerly
Allegheny Airlines); the combination became one of the East Coast's largest airlines. USAir later changed its name to
US Airways, which merged with
America West Airlines on November 4, 2007. US Airways merged with
American Airlines on October 17, 2015, with the American name being retained. The Charlotte hub established by Piedmont and maintained by US Airways continues under American; it is now American's second-largest hub.
Piedmont Airlines (formerly
Henson Airlines) still exists as a brand within American Airlines, doing business as
American Eagle. ==Historical fleet==