Frontier Airlines (1950–1986)
Frontier's final logo designed by Saul Bass in 1978.
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| Founded | 1950 | ||||||
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| Commenced operations | June 1, 1950 | ||||||
| Ceased operations | August 24, 1986 | ||||||
| Hubs | Stapleton International Airport (Denver) | ||||||
| Focus cities | |||||||
| Fleet size | 60 | ||||||
| Destinations | 94 | ||||||
| Headquarters | Denver, Colorado | ||||||
| Key people | Ray Wilson Hal Darr Bud Maytag Lew Dymond Al Feldman Glen Ryland |
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Frontier Airlines was a United States airline formed by a merger of Arizona Airways, Challenger Airlines, and Monarch Airlines (1946–1950) on June 1, 1950. It was headquartered at Stapleton Airport in Denver. The airline ceased operations on August 24, 1986. In 1994, a new airline was founded using the Frontier Airlines name.
The original Frontier Airlines dates to November 27, 1946, when Monarch Airlines began service in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. Frontier Airlines served cities in the Rocky Mountains bounded by Salt Lake City to the west, Billings to the north, Denver to the east, and Phoenix and El Paso to the south. In 1950 it flew to 40 cities in the Rocky Mountain region with 12 Douglas DC-3s and 400 employees. Before ceasing operations on August 24, 1986 it flew to more than 170 airports at various times over the years with service to both the U.S. east coast and west coast as well as to Canada and Mexico with an all-jet fleet.
Frontier continued to operate Douglas DC-3s and added Convair CV-340s beginning in 1959; the company introduced a new logo on the new aircraft. On June 1, 1964 it was the first airline to fly the Convair 580, a CV-340/440 retrofitted with GM Allison turboprops. It had 50 seats, was flown by two pilots and carried one flight attendant. (The aircraft could have carried 53 passengers, but that would have required a second flight attendant.) The CV-580 was the workhouse of the Frontier fleet until the introduction of the Boeing 737-200s in the early 1970s. In later years de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter and Beech 99 turboprops were added to serve destinations deemed too small in terms of passenger traffic for the Convair 580.
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