Logair

Logair, short for Logistic Airlift, was a domestic United States Air Force virtual airline that contracted carriers to fly cargo between Air Force bases, initially under the aegis of the Air Materiel Command . The program was first called Mercury Service but American Airlines then used the same name for coast-to-coast flights, so this quickly changed. Logair was a key source of demand for early US airfreight carriers, some of which became Logair specialists. Over time, its relative importance to the airline industry faded. The program was a victim of post-Cold War spending cuts and availability of robust commercial networks such as FedEx. The US Navy ran a similar service called Quicktrans.

History

Startup and early days

Mercury Service started April 1954 with contract awards to irregular air carriers AAXICO Airlines and Capitol Airways for six C-46 aircraft each. By August the name changed to Logair. Later that year, Logair awarded Resort Airlines a contract to fly DC-4s. Logair was similar to the Navy Quicktrans program started in 1950, but also formalized earlier Air Force air freight tests, such as "Project Skyway", which airlifted B-36 R-4360 radial engines to Pratt & Whitney, materially reducing time out of service. Similarly, air transport of jet engines cut out-of-service time from 135 days to 75 days, freeing 28 engines for use.
Logair was a large source of revenue for cargo and supplemental airlines, the two airline types that tended to dominate bidding. Fiscal 1957 Logair payments were $18 million. In the same period, total scheduled cargo airline revenue was $70.0 million, and that of supplementals $56.8 million. Logair awarded annual contracts for the federal government fiscal year initially based on competitive bidding for one or more "patterns" of service. For instance, in 1956, AMC solicited bids for five patterns for FY1957, one for DC-4s, the others for C-46s. Airline participation changed with the number of bids won from year to year, with the margin of victory sometimes less than a thousand dollars on bids totalling millions. Aircraft working for Logair were initially marked as such and could swap airlines. For instance, in 1960, AAXICO, by then a pure Logair specialist, lost its contract. It leased 25 C-46s to a winning bidder and ceased operations completely for twelve months, resuming when it won a contract the next year. In 1957, a new entity, the Military Traffic Management Agency, took over Logair and Quicktrans bidding, but the Air Force and Navy retained operational control.

Turbine transition and Vietnam

In 1960, competitive bidding for military charters came to an end. Instead, the Civil Aeronautics Board set military charter rates, with the military allocating contracts by participation in the Civil Reserve Air Fleet. The military measured an airline's CRAF participation by the mobilization value of aircraft enrolled in CRAF, with MV reflecting an aircraft's value to the military. Domestic and international CRAF were separate. International CRAF emphasized long-range jets, particularly jets convertible between passengers and cargo. Domestic CRAF aircraft were generally smaller, often turboprops. The greater an airline's MV of aircraft committed to domestic CRAF, the more its Logair/Quicktrans allocation.
Also in 1960, the Air Force started to reserve some patterns for aircraft capable of outsized loads, focusing on the Armstrong Whitworth AW.650 Argosy and a proposed civil version of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules, which would become the Lockheed L-100 Hercules. Riddle Airlines started flying the Argosy for Logair in January 1961. Congress wanted turbine equipment, despite testimony by Saturn Airways and World Airways about the better economics of fully-depreciated, reliable and flexible DC-6s. Jet speed was irrelevant for a system with a 382-mile average flight length. Nonetheless, Overseas National Airways started flying DC-9s for Logair in 1967. By 1969, Logair added Lockheed L-100 Hercules and Lockheed L-188 Electras. In 1970, the turbine requirement forced the Navy to outsource a Quicktrans route to Logair as Quicktrans did not have the equipment.
As the 1960s progressed, Logair became a sideshow, as international military charters soared due to Vietnam. As [|Table 1] shows, in 1961, Logair and Quicktrans together accounted for over 50% of military cargo charter spending and over 25% of all military charters, but by the end of the decade, Logair and Quicktrans were overshadowed. In FY1968, US flag carrier Pan Am alone was awarded just shy of $100 million in international military charters, more than twice total Logair and Quicktrans contracts. Table 1 also demonstrates how supplemental carriers dominated Logair: of Logair carriers listed, all were supplementals except for Airlift International and Slick Airways, which were scheduled cargo airlines.
Also, in April 1961, the Air Materiel Command became the Air Force Logistics Command, the new parent organization of Logair.

USD millions / YE June 30:	1961	1962	1963	1964	1965	1966	1967	1968	1969
Logair:
AAXICO Airlines		7.8	7.3	8.4	9.3
Airlift International	5.0	10.9	3.9	4.2	0.1	0.3	0.5	0.8
Capitol Airways	10.6	2.6	7.2	6.5	3.8
Overseas National								6.0	13.3
Saturn Airways						11.1	12.9	17.2	9.9
Slick Airways					6.1
Southern Air								0.3
Universal Airlines	5.3	3.2	6.4	8.2	11.4	12.0	10.1	6.5	6.3
World Airways	4.5	4.8	5.5	4.1		5.4	5.7	0.1	2.6
Logair total	25.3	29.2	30.3	31.4	30.7	28.8	29.3	31.0	32.1
Quicktrans:
Airlift International								0.3	0.1
Alaska Airlines								0.0
Flying Tiger Lines						3.0
Slick Airways		6.5	7.8	8.9	7.9
US Overseas	5.2
Universal Airlines						6.6	10.2	11.7	12.4
Quicktrans total	5.2	6.5	7.7	8.9	7.9	9.5	10.2	12.0	12.5
All military cargo charters	55.2	101.4	101.2	86.4	120.7	165.7	321.1	241.3	187.3
All military charters	112.5	179.8	206.1	186.9	235.1	357.7	617.0	617.3	573.7
Logair + Quicktrans as % of all military cargo charter	55.2	35.2	37.6	46.7	32.0	23.1	12.3	17.8	23.8
Logair + Quicktrans as % of all military charter	27.1	19.9	18.5	21.6	16.4	10.7	6.4	7.0	7.8

1970s: diminished competition and the CIA

Logair competition diminished substantially in the 1970s:

By 1970, Capitol and World shifted their fleets to long-haul aircraft Logair didn't use.
Airlift International made an effort to compete for Logair business by acquiring Lockheed L-100 Hercules, but could not finance them, so sold them and its Logair business to Saturn in 1970.
Universal collapsed in 1972. Saturn took over Universal's Logair contract and Electra fleet.
Overseas National Airways got out of Electras by year-end 1974 and DC-9s by 1976.
In 1973, Southern Air Transport, which had three Hercules, was, for the first time, awarded a portion of the Logair contract. This was seen by some as the last straw in a scandal over the CIA's secret ownership of SAT. By year end, SAT gave up its Logair contract and its CAB certification.

In 1977, when the CAB certificated Zantop International Airlines and recertificated Southern Air Transport as supplemental air carriers, a significant motivation was to create competition for Logair and Quicktrans. Only two carriers, ONA and Saturn, participated in Logair/Quicktrans in fiscal years 1973 thru 1976, and Saturn took over 75% of the combined business in 1975 thru 1977. The Air Force recognized that reduced interest was a problem. One issue was lower rates. In 1979, in the wake of the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act, the CAB eliminated fixed military charter rates, as established in the early 1960s. Military charter prices were once again set by negotiation between the military and the airlines. Another issue was that aircraft types best suited for Logair were not those most airlines flew. The Air Force noted the only aircraft competitive with the Electra for Logair was the DC-9. And for outsized cargo, nothing was competitive with the Hercules. Also, on a relative basis Logair was no longer a big program. in Fiscal Year 1979, Logair and Quicktrans together accounted for $55 million in airlift contracts. In 1979, freight revenues for the scheduled airlines were $2.2 billion, 40 times as much.

Hawaiian

Hawaiian Airlines made two brief appearances as a Logair contractor in the late 1970s. Hawaiian established Hawaiian Air Cargo to fly for Logair in 1976, leasing Electras from ZIA. Hawaiian Air Cargo was based in Macon, Georgia. ZIA retrieved its Electras in 1977, leaving Hawaiian out of the Logair contract. In 1978 Hawaiian sourced more Electras and tried again. This was unprofitable and in 1980 Hawaiian sold everything to ZIA. Hawaiian was the one of the few scheduled passenger airlines to participate in Logair.

1980s to 1992

The deregulated era (1979 onward) saw new entrant airlines make appearances as Logair contractors:

Interstate Airlines—as of 2025, the only former Logair carrier still in operation, now called Air Transport International.
Cam Air International
Spirit of America Airlines
TPI International Airways
Express One International
Kitty Hawk Air Cargo

However, Trans International Airlines, which bought Saturn in 1976, was a Logair contractor through its decision to liquidate in 1986. TIA was a monopoly provider of Lockheed L-100 Hercules aircraft to the Logair program through 1983. TIA's Hercules monopoly was noted in 1977 by the CAB and again by Air Force researchers in 1981. When Transamerica liquidated in 1986, SAT took over Transamerica's Hercules and that monopoly.
Other long-time Logair contractors included Zantop International, which was present from 1977 through 1991. Evergreen first made an appearance in FY1977 and was present in the final year These long-term Logair contractors, Evergreen, SAT, TIA/Transamerica and Zantop were all former supplemental air carriers with pre-deregulation roots.

End

After the Gulf War, at the dawn of the post-Cold War era, Logair restructured around a two hub concept, "Logair 92", centered on Hill Air Force Base in Utah and Warner Robins in Georgia. But the Air Force shut down Logair after a year at the end of FY1992, saying this would save $80 million a year. A year later, General Merrill McPeak, Air Force Chief of Staff, said Logair had "lingered on long after its economic justification disappeared."

Operational features

Ground handling was done by USAF personnel. Space utilization regularly exceeded that of civilian freight flights, in part because the Air Force moved lower priority items on Logair flights on a space-available basis. Flights were split between trunk routes linking major supply bases, and feeder routes into such bases. Logair loads included hazardous material and items of national security. Aircraft had facilities for couriers or cargo escorts who accompanied certain high-security items. Some items required on-board power to transport items that required environmental control. Aircraft were configured for military 463L master pallets. As the photos show, in the early days, contracted aircraft were titled with "Logair", but this appears to have died out by the late 1960s.
The warehouses at Logair hubs were highly automated. The nearby photo of the C-46 at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio shows the Air Force invested in material handling equipment at an early stage. Hill AFB accomplished its first mechanized loading of an Argosy in 1961. Logair routes were established from warehouses to support specific Air Force programs, e.g. one to support F-4s, or another to Minuteman ICBMs.
Logair flights also had their own callsign, "LOGAIR".

Criticism

Critics went after Logair both for relying on commercial services and not relying on commercial service sufficiently. For instance, in 1980, the staff of the House Appropriations Committee said the Air Force could save money by relying on its own C-130 and T-39 aircraft to make deliveries. The response was that in an emergency, such aircraft would be pulled away for front-line military purposes at the exact time that the Air Force would need even more logistics support. On the other hand, in 1958, Slick Airways testified to Congress that by creating its own air freight networks the Air Force and Navy had stunted the development of US scheduled air freight.

Carriers

Fleet

At inception, 1954:

12 Curtiss C-46

Fiscal year 1957:

33 Curtiss C-46
8 Douglas DC-4

1959:

50 Curtiss C-46
19 Douglas DC-4

FY 1965:

1 June 1971:

March 1981:

Other aircraft known to fly for Logair include the Boeing 727 and Convair 640.

Destinations

At inception, 1954: