List of Braniff International Airways destinations
Destinations in 1931
In 1931, Braniff Airways was serving just five destinations:[1]
According to the March 10, 1931 Braniff Airways system timetable, flights were operated on a linear routing of Chicago-Kansas City-Tulsa-Oklahoma City-Wichita Falls at this time.
Destinations in 1948
In June 1948, the airline was flying both domestic and international service and had changed its name to Braniff International Airways.[2] According to its June 4, 1948 system timetable, the following destinations were being served:
- Amarillo, Texas
- Austin, Texas
- Brownsville, Texas
- Burlington, Iowa
- Chicago, Illinois
- Colorado Springs, Colorado
- Corpus Christi, Texas
- Dallas, Texas
- Denver, Colorado
- Fort Smith, Arkansas
- Fort Worth, Texas
- Galveston, Texas
- Guayaquil, Ecuador
- Havana, Cuba
- Houston, Texas
- Kansas City, Missouri
- Laredo, Texas
- Lima, Peru
- Little Rock, Arkansas
- Lubbock, Texas
- Memphis, Tennessee
- Moline, Illinois
- Muskogee, Oklahoma
- Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
- Panama City, Panama (via Balboa, Canal Zone)
- Ponca City, Oklahoma
- Pueblo, Colorado
- San Antonio, Texas
- Topeka, Kansas
- Tulsa, Oklahoma
- Waco, Texas
- Wichita Falls, Texas
- Wichita, Kansas
According to the above referenced Braniff International timetable, flights were operated with Douglas DC-3, DC-4 and DC-6 aircraft at this time. Braniff's new international service was being operated on a routing of Chicago-Kansas City-Dallas-Houston-Havana-Balboa, C.Z.-Guayaquil-Lima twice a week with an additional service being flown once a week on a routing of Chicago-Kansas City-Dallas-Houston-Havana-Balboa, C.Z.-Lima.
Merger with Mid-Continent Airlines: New destinations in the 1950s
Following its acquisition of and merger with Mid-Continent Airlines in 1952, Braniff began serving the following new destinations:[3]
- Aberdeen, South Dakota
- Bismarck, North Dakota
- Clinton, Iowa
- Des Moines, Iowa
- Dubuque, Iowa
- Fort Dodge, Iowa
- Huron, South Dakota
- Joplin, Missouri
- Lincoln, Nebraska
- Longview, Texas
- Mason City, Iowa
- Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
- Minot, North Dakota
- Mitchell, South Dakota
- New Orleans, Louisiana
- Norfolk, Nebraska
- Omaha, Nebraska
- Ottumwa, Iowa
- Quincy, Illinois
- Rochester, Minnesota
- Rockford, Illinois
- St. Joseph, Missouri
- St. Louis, Missouri
- Shreveport, Louisiana
- Sioux City, Iowa
- Sioux Falls, South Dakota
- Texarkana, Arkansas
- Tyler, Texas
- Waterloo, Iowa
- Watertown, South Dakota
Braniff also began serving Austin, Minnesota; Brookings, South Dakota; Fargo, North Dakota and McAlester, Oklahoma during the 1950s:[4]
The acquisition of Mid-Continent by Braniff enabled the airline to begin service for the first time to several large U.S. cities including Milwaukee, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New Orleans, Omaha and St. Louis. However, by 1960 Braniff had ceased serving many of the smaller cities listed above.[5]
Destinations: 1960-1982
The following destinations were served by Braniff International Airways primarily with jet aircraft (except where noted below) during the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s before it ceased operations in May 1982.[6][7][8][9] According to various Braniff timetables and route maps, a number of these destinations were served at different times over the years.
- Acapulco (General Juan N. Álvarez International Airport)
- Albany, NY (Albany International Airport)
- Amarillo (Amarillo International Airport)
- Amsterdam (Amsterdam Airport Schiphol)
- Anchorage (Anchorage International Airport) - served by Alaska Airlines via interchange flights operated in conjunction with Braniff
- Antofagasta (Cerro Moreno International Airport)
- Asunción (Silvio Pettirossi International Airport)
- Atlanta (Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport)
- Austin (Robert Mueller Airport)
- Balboa, Canal Zone - served via Tocumen International Airport
- Birmingham (Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport)[10]
- Bogotá (El Dorado International Airport)
- Boston (Logan International Airport) - hub [10]
- Brownsville (Brownsville/South Padre Island International Airport)
- Brussels (Brussels Airport)
- Buenos Aires (Ministro Pistarini International Airport)
- Calgary (Calgary International Airport) - served by Western Airlines via interchange flights operated in conjunction with Braniff
- Cali (Alfonso Bonilla Aragón International Airport)
- Caracas (Simón Bolívar International Airport)
- Chattanooga (Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport) - mainline prop aircraft service until the early 1960s
- Chicago
- (Midway International Airport) - mainline prop aircraft service until the early 1960s
- (O'Hare International Airport)
- Cleveland (Hopkins International Airport)
- Colorado Springs (Colorado Springs Airport)
- Corpus Christi (Corpus Christi International Airport)
- Dallas – Fort Worth Metroplex (Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport) - primary hub[11][12]
- Dallas (Love Field Airport) - former hub
- Denver (Stapleton International Airport)
- Des Moines (Des Moines International Airport)
- Detroit (Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport)
- Edmonton (Edmonton International Airport) - served by Western Airlines via interchange flights operated in conjunction with Braniff
- Fairbanks (Fairbanks International Airport) - served by Alaska Airlines via interchange flights operated in conjunction with Braniff
- Fort Lauderdale (Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport)
- Fort Smith, AR (Fort Smith Regional Airport)
- Fort Worth (Greater Southwest International Airport)
- Frankfurt (Frankfurt Airport)
- Guam (Guam International Airport)
- Guayaquil (José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport)
- Harlingen, TX (Valley International Airport)
- Hartford, CT/Springfield, MA (Bradley International Airport)
- Hilo (Hilo International Airport)
- Hong Kong (Kai Tak Airport)
- Honolulu (Honolulu International Airport)[13][14]
- Houston (George Bush Intercontinental Airport) - hub
- Houston (William P. Hobby Airport)
- Jacksonville (Jacksonville International Airport)[10]
- Kansas City (Kansas City International Airport)
- La Paz (El Alto International Airport)
- Las Vegas (McCarran International Airport)
- Little Rock (Little Rock National Airport)
- Los Angeles (Los Angeles International Airport) - hub[10]
- Lima (Jorge Chávez International Airport)
- London (Gatwick Airport)[15][16][17]
- Lubbock (Lubbock International Airport)
- Manaus (Eduardo Gomes International Airport)
- Maracaibo (La Chinita International Airport)
- Memphis (Memphis International Airport)
- Mexico City (Mexico City International Airport)
- Miami (Miami International Airport) (hub)
- Midland, TX/Odessa, TX (Midland International Airport)
- Milwaukee (General Mitchell International Airport)
- Minneapolis/Saint Paul (Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport)
- Montevideo (Carrasco International Airport)
- Montreal (Montréal–Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport)
- Nashville (Nashville International Airport)
- New Orleans (New Orleans International Airport)
- New York City
- Newark (Newark International Airport)
- Oakland (Oakland International Airport)[10]
- Oklahoma City (Will Rogers World Airport)[18]
- Omaha (Eppley Airfield)
- Orlando (Orlando International Airport)[10]
- Panama City - (Tocumen International Airport)
- Paris (Charles de Gaulle Airport)
- Philadelphia (Philadelphia International Airport)[10]
- Phoenix (Sky Harbor International Airport)[10]
- Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh International Airport)
- Portland (Portland International Airport)
- Quito (Mariscal Sucre Airport)
- Reno (Reno-Tahoe International Airport)
- Rio de Janeiro (Galeão International Airport)
- Rochester, MN (Rochester International Airport) - mainline prop aircraft service until the mid 1960s
- Sacramento (Sacramento International Airport)
- St. Louis (Lambert-Saint Louis International Airport)
- Salt Lake City (Salt Lake City International Airport)
- San Antonio (San Antonio International Airport)
- San Francisco (San Francisco International Airport)
- São Paulo (Congonhas-São Paulo Airport)
- Santiago (Comodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport)
- Seattle/Tacoma (Seattle-Tacoma International Airport)
- Seoul (Gimpo International Airport)
- Shreveport (Shreveport Regional Airport)
- Sioux City, IA (Sioux Gateway Airport) - mainline prop aircraft and BAC One-Eleven jet service until the late 1960s
- Sioux Falls, SD (Sioux Falls Regional Airport) - mainline prop aircraft and BAC One-Eleven jet service until the late 1960s
- Singapore (Singapore Changi Airport)
- Tampa (Tampa International Airport)
- Texarkana (Texarkana Regional Airport) - mainline prop aircraft service until the early 1960s
- Toronto (Toronto Pearson International Airport)
- Tucson (Tucson International Airport)[10]
- Tulsa (Tulsa International Airport)[18]
- Waco (Waco Regional Airport) - mainline prop aircraft service until the early 1960s
- Washington, D.C.
- Waterloo, IA (Waterloo Regional Airport) - mainline prop aircraft and BAC One-Eleven jet service until the late 1960s
- West Palm Beach (Palm Beach International Airport)
- Wichita (Wichita Mid-Continent Airport)
- Wichita Falls (Wichita Falls Municipal Airport)
References
- http://www.timetableimages.com, March 10, 1931 Braniff Airways system timetable
- http://www.timetableimages.com, June 4, 1948 Braniff International Airways system timetable
- http://www.timetableimages.com, April 26, 1953 Braniff International Airways system timetable
- http://www.timetableimages.com, June 26, 1953 & Jan. 1, 1956 Braniff International Airways system timetables
- http://www.timetableimages.com, April 24, 1960 Braniff International Airways system timetable
- http://www.timetableimages.com, Braniff International Airways system timetables, April 24, 1960 through July 1, 1968
- http://www.departedflights.com, Braniff International Airways system timetables, Oct. 27, 1974 through April 25, 1982
- http://www.departedflights.com, Braniff International Airways route maps, Oct. 27, 1974 through April 29, 1982
- Braniff International Timetable for April 15, 1982 (accessed 2012-09-06).
- On December 15, 1978, Braniff added 16 new cities and 32 new routes, which it stated to be the "largest single-day increase by any airline in history". Beth Ellyn Rosenthal and Bruce Selcraig, "Bad Times at Braniff: Harding Lawrence’s grandiose flight plan took Braniff to dizzying heights, but it ultimately put the airline into a tailspin." Archived 2013-01-21 at Archive.today D Magazine, February 1981. The new cities are listed at "Airline expanding", Associated Press in The Victoria Advocate, November 19, 1978. By 1982 several of these cities were no longer on the schedule.
- Carlos A. Schwantes, Going Places: Transportation Redefines the Twentieth-Century West (Indiana University Press, 2003), ISBN 978-0253342027, p.313. Excerpts available at Google Books.
- Thomas Petzinger, Jr., Hard Landing: The Epic Contest for Power and Profits That Plunged the Airlines into Chaos (Random House Digital 1996), ISBN 978-0812928358. Excerpts available at Google Books.
- "Giant Airliner no big success", Reuters in Leader-Post, January 5, 1972.
- Gordon Baxter, "Braniff's Final Hours", Flying, October 1982, pp. 85, 87.
- "Britain Denies Braniff Requests", Sarasota Herald-Tribune, February 14, 1978.
- "Braniff Scrubs Maiden Flight From London In Fare Dispute", Associated Press in Toledo Blade, March 2, 1978.
- Dennis Fulton, "Braniff Was Dallas's Introduction to Airline Bankruptcy", Dallas Morning News, April 20, 2003.
- Oklahoma City was the airline's first headquarters, and Oklahoma City-Tulsa the first route, when the airline began flying on June 28, 1928. Keith Tolman, "Braniff International Airways" Archived 2010-01-19 at the Wayback Machine, Oklahoma Historical Society Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture Archived April 16, 2009, at the Wayback Machine (accessed 2012-12-10).