Photo Essay: The Last Days of US Airways
US Airways, which began life as All American Aviation in 1937, will cease to exist as an airline Saturday.
The airline is one of the country’s remaining legacy carriers and merged with American Airlines in 2013. It has operated as a subsidiary of American and a separate airline since the merger closed but that will all end after tomorrow.
The last major step in the ongoing integration process will take place on October 17, 2015, namely combining the two airlines’ reservations systems. When this happens, US Airways will officially cease to exist, it will no longer fly with the IATA code of “US” and with the callsign “Cactus” (left over from America West, which merged with US Airways in 2005), and its flights will bear American Airlines flight numbers.
American is planning a celebratory flight on October 16. It will be operated as US1939 to commemorate the airline’s founding as All American Aviation in 1939, and it will stop by US Airways’ key hubs. It will depart Philadelphia, stop at Charlotte, continue on to Phoenix, and then San Francisco, and return to Philadelphia as a redeye arriving shortly after 6 a.m. on the morning of the 17th.
In observation of the milestone, here are some of our favorite US Airways photographs, taken over the past few years.
(Photos: Accura Media Group)
Click here to continue to Page 2 – Landing at LAX
