West Coast Airlines
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| Founded | 1941 |
|---|---|
| Ceased operations | 1968 |
| Operating bases | Seattle, Washington |
| Hubs | Seattle, Washington |
| Focus cities | Boise, Idaho; Portland, Oregon; Spokane, Washington |
| Headquarters | Seattle, Washington |
West Coast Airlines was a regional airline (then called a "local service" airline as defined by the federal Civil Aeronautics Board) linking smaller destinations in the Pacific Northwest with larger cities in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Montana, California and north to Alberta in Canada. Its headquarters was in the Westlake area of Seattle, Washington.
West Coast was formed in 1941 and acquired Empire Airlines (formerly Zimmerly Airlines) in 1952. The company was based at Boeing Field, Seattle, and began scheduled passenger service in 1946 with a fleet of Douglas DC-3s marketed as Scenicliners.
A promotional film produced for the company in the 1960s stated that in 1946 the federal Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) granted the first regional airline certificate to West Coast Airlines as local service air carrier.
In July 1953 West Coast scheduled flights to 32 airports in Washington, Oregon and Idaho; in May 1968 it flew to 36 airports including 29 in those states. Like other Local Service airlines West Coast was subsidized; in 1962 its operating "revenues" included $6.6 million from passengers and $5.4 million for "mail".
West Coast was the first local service airline in the U.S. to operate turbine powered airliners when it commenced Fairchild F-27 turboprop flights in September 1958. The F-27 was the U.S. manufactured version of the Dutch built Fokker F27 Friendship. In June 1968 West Coast was the first airline to order Fairchild 228 twin jets with the acquisition of three planned, but the F-228, a smaller variant of the Dutch manufactured Fokker F28 Fellowship jet, never made it to production. The only jet aircraft type operated by West Coast was the Douglas DC-9-14 with 75 seats in an all coach configuration.
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Wikipedia