Delta's South Florida October 1981 Schedule

Delta has long been a player in the South Florida airline market. In fact, Delta’s success in the market is remarkable because the airline has never had a proper hub or mini-hub among the three airports and relied heavily on point to point service built up pre deregulation and from the 1972 merger with Northeast to become one of the dominant local carriers.

Here is a snapshot at Delta’s October 1981 South Florida operation, which went head to head with locally based Eastern as well as Pan Am (founded in Florida but moved to New York and eventually back to Miami) out of the three south Florida airports.

It is also worth noting that the five flights between Miami and Fort Lauderdale were all tag alongs that often went on to another destination. For example, one of the flights that originated in Fort Lauderdale and went to Miami continued on to Montreal. Another flight that originated in Miami and went to Fort Lauderdale continued to Baltimore.

FORT LAUDERDALE

Atlanta 7x daily

Baltimore 1x daily

Boston 3x daily

Chicago O’Hare 4x daily

Dallas/Fort Worth 1x daily

Detroit 2x daily

Hartford 1x daily

Miami 5x daily

Newark 2x daily

New York-JFK 3x daily

New York-LGA 2x daily

Philadelphia 2x daily

Tampa/St Pete 3x daily

36 Flights Daily

MIAMI

Atlanta 6x daily

Boston 3x daily

Chicago ORD 2x daily

Cincinnati 1x daily

Detroit 1x daily

Fort Lauderdale 5x daily

Memphis 1x daily

Montreal 2x daily

Philadelphia 1x daily

San Juan 2x daily

Tampa 3x daily

West Palm Beach 3x daily

30 Flights Daily

WEST PALM BEACH

Atlanta 6x daily

Boston 2x daily

Chicago ORD 2x daily

Detroit 1x daily

Jacksonville 2x daily

Miami 3x daily

New York LGA 2x daily

Tampa 1x daily

19 Flights Daily

Braniff International: Spring 1978

Deregulation of the airline industry was a killer for Braniff International, which over expanded and went belly up in early 1982.

In Spring 1978, the Airline Deregulation Act still had not been implemented and Braniff was still a modest sized, yet flamboyant Texas based airline. The airline had a major gateway operation at Miami International Airport.

Here is Braniff's 1978 Spring nonstop schedule from the three Florida cities it served.

FORT LAUDERDALE

Dallas/ Ft Worth 1x daily
Denver 1x daily
Tampa/St Pete 4x daily

6 daily nonstops

MIAMI

Bogota 5x weekly
Buenos Aires 1x weekly
Dallas/Ft Worth 33x weekly
Denver 14 x weekly
Lima 3x weekly
New York-JFK 7 x weekly
Panama City 20x weekly
Santiago 1x weekly
Tampa 21x weekly
Washington-IAD 1x weekly

106 flights weekly, an average of 15 daily

Thru/same plane service to Asucion, Cali, Kansas City La Paz, Manaus, Oklahoma City, Quito and Rio De Janiero all of which fed the Miami gateway operation.

TAMPA/ST PETERSBURG

Dallas/ Ft Worth 5x daily
Denver 1x daily
Ft Lauderdale 4x daily
Miami 3x daily
Oklahoma City 2x daily

15 flights daily