Pacific Southwest Airlines
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| Founded | 1949 | ||||||
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| Commenced operations | 1949 | ||||||
| Ceased operations | 1988 (integrated into USAir) | ||||||
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| Fleet size | 75 | ||||||
| Destinations | 31 | ||||||
| Company slogan | Catch our Smile | ||||||
| Parent company |
PSA Inc. (1949–1986) USAir (1987–1988) |
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| Headquarters | San Diego, California | ||||||
| Key people |
Kenny Friedkin (Founder and Original President) Jean Friedkin (Founder and Original Vice President) Eleanor Glithero (PSA's first employee) |
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Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) was a United States airline headquartered in San Diego, California, that operated from 1949 to 1988. It was the first large discount airline in the United States. PSA called itself "The World's Friendliest Airline" and painted a smile on the nose of its airplanes, the PSA Grinningbirds. Opinion L.A. of the Los Angeles Times called PSA "practically the unofficial flag carrier airline of California for almost 40 years." The airline initially operated as an intrastate air carrier wholly within California before expanding to other destinations in other states following the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978.
PSA was one of the four airlines that formed US Airways, the others being America West Airlines, Piedmont Airlines and Allegheny Airlines. PSA was merged into USAir in 1988. USAir then changed its name to US Airways which in turn merged with American Airlines in 2013.
PSA's Boeing customer number was 14. Following the acquisition by and merger with USAir, the PSA name was given to Jetstream International Airlines by US Airways to preserve the PSA name and trademarks.
Kenny Friedkin founded the airline in 1949 with a $1,000-a-month leased Douglas DC-3. Friedkin obtained information from a travel agent upon starting the airline due to lessons learned from a failed precursor airline (Friedkin Airlines). The DC-3 inaugurated a weekly round trip from San Diego to Oakland via Burbank. Reservations were initially taken from a World War II surplus latrine refitted as a ticket office. In 1951, PSA flights moved from Oakland to San Francisco International. In 1955 PSA bought two Douglas DC-4s from Capital Airlines and painted boxes around the windows to make the planes resemble the Douglas DC-6.
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