New York Air
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| Founded | 1980 | ||||||
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| Ceased operations | 1 February 1987 (merged with Continental Airlines) | ||||||
| Hubs | LaGuardia Airport | ||||||
| Fleet size | 34 | ||||||
| Destinations | 24 | ||||||
| Parent company | Texas Air Corporation | ||||||
| Headquarters | Queens, New York City, New York | ||||||
| Key people | Neal F. Meehan (1980-1982) Michael E. Levine (1982–1984) Mike Arnone (1982–1987) |
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New York Air was a 1980s startup airline owned by Texas Air Corporation and based at Hangar 5 at LaGuardia Airport in Flushing, Queens, New York City. It ceased operations on February 1, 1987, in a merger with Continental Airlines.
In 1980, airline industry entrepreneur Frank Lorenzo created a holding company for his Texas International Airlines called Texas Air Corporation. In the autumn of 1980, Texas Air created a new airline called New York Air (NYA), the second of America's post-deregulation airlines after Midway Airlines, which had been founded a year earlier in 1979 (see Airline Deregulation Act of 1978). Based at New York's LaGuardia Airport, New York Air challenged the expensive and near-monopoly Eastern Air Lines Shuttle, and provided cheaper and equally frequent (hourly) flights between New York, Boston and Washington-Reagan National.
Founding New York Air president, Neal F. Meehan, had been a senior manager at both Continental Airlines and at Texas International Airlines (TI). In September, 1980, he assembled a team of airline managers; within 90 days it had hired, trained, uniformed, and drilled New York Air's flight crew, flight attendants, dispatchers, terminal, ramp and reservations personnel. Office and maintenance facilities in the hangar which had originally housed American Airlines headquarters at LaGuardia in the 1930s were thrown up rapidly, and the carrier obtained FAA certification as an adjunct to TI's certificate. In one notable vignette, New York Air managers interviewed over a thousand candidates for flight attendant, reservations, and airport jobs in one day of group interviews held at New York's famed Town Hall Theater, in November 1980.
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