Slick Airways
| Founded | 1946 |
|---|---|
| Ceased operations | 1966 |
| Operating bases |
Lockheed Air Terminal San Francisco Airport |
| Headquarters | San Antonio |
Slick Airways was a cargo airline from the United States, that operated scheduled and chartered flights between 1946 and 1966. The airline was founded by Earl Slick, a Texas aviator and multimillionaire who along with his brother had inherited $25 million dollars (around 324 million in 2015 currency) after their father's death in 1930.
The airline was formed in January 1946 as the air cargo division of the Slick Corporation, headquartered in San Antonio. Slick Airways had its original fleet of Curtiss C-46 Commando aircraft based at Lockheed Air Terminal (Burbank) and San Francisco Airport. In 1949, scheduled freighter flights to domestic destinations were commenced, and by 1951, the company had become the largest all-cargo airline of the United States. On 16 April of that year, Slick Airways became the first airline to operate the freighter variant of the Douglas DC-6 (the passenger variant had been introduced with United Airlines five days earlier).
In 1954, Slick Airways went into merger talks with Flying Tigers because of the increasing competition by passenger airlines, which failed because the respective shareholder would not approve of these plans. In 1958, the company was forced to suspend all scheduled services, though it continued to operate charter flights on behalf of the United States Armed Forces, also to European destinations. A fleet of newly built Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation airliners went into service with the airline during 1959, initially being used to fly military freight from Travis Air Force Base near Sacramento to Japan. This operation was supplemented by Canadair CL-44s from 1962.
In October 1962 scheduled flights were resumed, when Slick Airways was granted permanent permission to operate its transcontinental Route 101. The trunk routing went from either San Francisco or Burbank to Dallas, St. Louis, Chicago, Indianapolis and New York City and was operated using the Lockheed Super Constellation. The DC-6 was used on side routes. Additionally, Slick Airways operated on so called Quicktrans domestic routes on behalf of the United States Navy. In 1965, the L-1049 was withdrawn from the Route 101 in favor of the CL-44.
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