Trans International Airlines

Trans International Airlines, later Transamerica Airlines, was a United States airline. Regulated as a supplemental air carrier, it offered a hybrid of chartered and scheduled service. TIA was founded as Los Angeles Air Service in the 1940s and flew scheduled service to Hawaii as late as 1961.
Businessman Kirk Kerkorian owned the airline from 1948 to 1962 and again from 1964 to 1968, when he sold it to insurance company Transamerica Corporation. TIA was the largest supplemental carrier after buying Saturn Airways in 1976, although still modest in size relative to US scheduled carriers. After the Airline Deregulation Act of 1979, the airline changed its name to Transamerica and added limited scheduled service. In 1986 Transamerica Corporation, reversing earlier diversification, tried selling the airline, but liquidated it instead.
In 1984, while Transamerica Airlines was seeking wage cuts, Transamerica Corporation started a second Trans International Airlines, as a non-union subsidiary. Transamerica Corporation set a legal precedent for being allowed to own separate union and non-union airline subsidiaries.

History

Startup

Kirk Kerkorian was a pilot in World War II, engaged in pilot instruction and aircraft delivery across the Atlantic, including a record-setting nonstop flight of a deHavilland Mosquito from Canada to the UK.
In January 1946, Kerkorian and his sister formed a partnership to trade aircraft. This activity attracted significant attention when, in October 1946, while Kerkorian was flying a war-surplus Douglas DC-3 from Hawaii to the mainland, the ferry tank system malfunctioned and the engines quit. His crew issued a distress call before it was able to restore power, leading to news stories.
Los Angeles Air Service was a separate nonscheduled airline, later known as an irregular air carrier or supplemental air carrier. LAAS was in operation with a C-47 as early as January 1946. In 1946, LAAS's presence was noted at LaGuardia in March, Chicago in April and LAAS advertised a charter flight to Alaska from Seattle in May. In 1947, LAAS started scheduled DC-3 service from Los Angeles Municipal Airport to Big Bear, at which time its owners/operators were James Porter and Lee Taylor.
Kerkorian's partnership bought LAAS in June 1948, which on 13 August 1948 was issued a Letter of Registration by the CAB as an irregular air carrier. Kerkorian incorporated Los Angeles Air Service, Inc., in California on 20 December 1948, a separate entity from the original LAAS. However, it was only on 5 April 1951 that the Letter of Registration was transferred from the LAAS partnership to the LAAS corporation, thereby making the corporate entity the airline.

Los Angeles Air Service

Under Kerkorian, LAAS operated intermittently; it operated no flights at all from 3rd quarter of 1951 through 1st quarter of 1954, and had minimal operations in 1957 and 1958. In September 1957, the CAB warned LAAS to operate within the next 30 days or lose operating authority, the airline having sold all its aircraft. Kerkorian's interests were as much in aircraft trading as airline operation: when Kerkorian took a stake in a Las Vegas casino in 1955, Variety Magazine referred to him not an airline operator but as an airplane dealer. Kerkorian made some famous deals through LAAS. For instance, in 1951, LAAS bought the wreckage of a British Overseas Airways Corporation Constellation in the UK from BOAC's insurers, shipped it to the US and had Lockheed rebuild it, leasing it to California Hawaiian Airlines, another irregular airline. All-told, the deal netted Kerkorian over a half-million dollars. See [|External links] for photos of LAAS C-46 and DC-4 aircraft.

USD 000	1952	1953	1954	1955	1956	1957	1958	1959	1960
Operating revenue:
Military charter			624	1,032	1,950	21	31	1,315	1,652
Civilian charter			64	8	49	4	5	249	279
Scheduled			27	59	10	0	0	0	939
Other			0	1	0	313	184	78	0
Total	0	0	715	1,100	2,009	338	220	1,642	2,870
Profit before taxes	0	1	34	3					287
Operating revenue:
% of industry	0.0	0.0	1.3	1.4	3.0	0.7	0.3	2.1	3.4
Industry rank	NA	NA	21	18	15	23	24	7	7

Trans International and Hawaii

LAAS changed its name in 1960 in part to eliminate confusion with Los Angeles Airways, a scheduled helicopter airline. It originally wanted "California National Airlines", changing to "California International Airlines" when National Airlines objected, before settling on Trans International. Originally just a trade name, later in the year LAAS changed the name of the corporation. Coincident with the name change, the airline entered the scheduled market from the west coast to Hawaii flying DC-6B aircraft; its Hawaii representative was Peter Ueberroth, later famous for running the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. TIA's 1960 revenues reflect a far higher level of scheduled service than previously. See [|Table 1]. But from April 1960, the legal status of supplemental carriers was in question and when Congress settled the issue in 1962, it limited supplemental carriers to purely charter service from 1964.

Jets

In 1960 the US Air Force shifted emphasis from using its own transportation service to commercial charters, which it no longer awarded on the basis of competitive bidding. Instead, the CAB set uniform prices for military charters, which were awarded on the basis of participation in the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, rewarding airlines that enrolled aircraft in CRAF that the military valued, such as long-range jets and those with cargo capability, and above all convertible aircraft.
TIA was the first supplemental to fly jets, buying the Douglas DC-8 prototype, "Ship One", which had been upgraded to then-modern JT3D turbofan engines, in June 1962. TIA immediately landed a $6.2 million military charter contract, an amount greater than TIA's total 1961 revenue. In July 1963 TIA was the first airline of any kind to fly cargo jet charters for the military, leveraging the military's preference by acquiring a convertible passenger/cargo aircraft. Kerkorian later said moving to jets "was the real breakthrough." Note the substantial difference in performance between Table 1 and [|Table 2]. Apart from Ship One, TIA would buy 12 DC-8s new from Douglas in the 1960s, all convertible. Military charters boomed because of the Vietnam War. TIA had much lower costs than most airlines, and that plus higher military charter rates and demand for convertible jets resulted in fast growth and high operating margins. For instance, from 1964 to 1965, TIA's revenues grew by 56% while operating margin expanded from 19.4% to 33.0%.
In 1965, TIA's jets brought further benefit. The CAB provided an exemption for TIA to offer European charters that summer. The CAB wanted more jet capacity and the supplemental airlines already certificated for Europe, Saturn and Capitol, had no jets and a single jet respectively. Obtaining Europe access was fortunate for TIA; as discussed below, Europe became the key non-military market for supplementals.

USD 000	1961	1962	1963	1964	1965	1966	1967	1968	1969	1970
Operating revenue:
Military charter	3,960	9,973	10,559	11,591	13,731	18,543	14,034	22,124	22,630	25,832
Civilian charter	198	52	324	2,189	7,064	10,931	13,745	22,617	25,806	33,834
Scheduled	1,524	20
Other	72	6	30	204	1,068	1,371	3,741	3,385	1,579	1,267
Total	5,754	10,050	10,910	13,984	21,863	30,846	31,519	48,125	50,016	60,933
Op profit	176	1,409	2,581	2,710	7,204	9,142	8,629	10,416	4,763	7,809
Net profit	276	1,280	1,856	1,101	3,890	4,545	5,391	6,535	4,012	2,388
Op margin	3.1	14.0	23.7	19.4	33.0	29.6	27.4	21.6	9.5	12.8
Operating revenue:
% of industry	7.0	9.4	11.8	13.2	15.5	14.7	12.2	14.8	13.8	18.1
Industry rank	5	3	4	4	3	3	3	2	3	1

File:N4866T DC-8-63CF Trans International MAN AUG74.jpg|thumb|DC-8-63CF Manchester 1974