Florida Airways a gone but not forgotten airline

1. FLORIDA AIRWAYS
In our series gone but not forgotten, here is another airline that was swallowed by
history’s insatiable appetite, this airline is FLORIDA AIRWAYS which graced the
skies of Florida from 1946 to 1949. Florida airways was founded by Thomas E.
Gordon owner of Economy cab, Florida Aeronautical Supply Company as well as a
400-acre privately owned airport “CANNON MILLS” in Orlando Florida.
Florida airways was born as Orlando Airlines. On March 28, 1946, the CAB issued a
temporary certificate to operate intra-state services (route 75) within the state of
Florida. Operations began on January 9, 1947 as Florida Airways with a fleet of
Beech D18C.
beech 18 silhouette from wikipedia
The operations proved to be un-economical and extremely costly for the US tax payer.
On March 7, 1949, the CAB denied the application for the extension of the company’s
temporary certificate beyond March 31, 1949. This decision doomed the airline since
according to the CAB, the revenues generated by passenger transport were
insufficient to operate without government subsidies as the cost of carrying mail by

2. Florida Airways was extremely expensive $30c per mile versus a system wide cost of
$6.74c coupled with ferocious competition from Eastern Airlines since the CAB
allowed Eastern to operate to Gainesville and Ocala on its ATL-MCO run 2 cities that
were extensively served by Florida Airways. .
The company folded in March 1949 and its founder Tom. E. Gordon fought extremely
hard to keep his company alive, he urged the CAB to be awarded Southern Airways
route 98 which had not yet begun as the owner of Southern airways Frank W. Hulse
had tremendous problems in finding investors and raising capital. Hulse pledged that
his Southern flight No1: ATLANTA-GADSDEN-BIRMINGHAM-
TUSCALOOSA-COLUMBUS-MEMPHIS will begin on June 10, 1949 as agreed
with the CAB. When this door was closed, Gordon pleaded with the CAB to have a
shot gun wedding with Southern Airways but to no avail. The route and city
authorities granted by the CAB were as follow :
Jan 10, 1947: Orlando-Ocala-Gainesville-lake City-Tallahassee-Lake City-
Gainesville-Ocala
Feb 25, 1947: Gainesville-Jacksonville
Mar25,1947:Jacksonville-St Augustine-Palatka-Leland-Sanford-Orlando-
Sanford-Leland-Palatka-St Augustine.
Mar4, 1948: Leesburg
Apr 7, 1948: Perry

3. FLORIDA AIRWAYS TIMETABLE DATED JULY 25 1947, FROM THE
BJORN LARSSON COLLECTION @ www.timetableimages.com

4. FLORIDA AIRWAYS TIMETABLE DATED APRIL 5 1948, FROM THE
BJORN LARSSON COLLECTION @ www.timetableimages.com
STATISTICS AND MAPS
Thanks to the information found on the site www.timetableimages.com (Collection of
Bjorn Larsson), we can have the following statistics and maps

5. FLORIDA AIRWAYS TT 25/07/1947 TT 15/04/1948
Destinations 10 12
Sectors 10 15
Network 818 km 961 km
FLORIDA AIRWAYS 1947 MAP

6. FLORIDA AIRWAYS 1948 MAP
From Jacksonville Eastern Airlines and Delta Airlines provided connecting flights to
and from a lot of major cities as evidenced by the connecting flights map below.

7. CONNECTING MAP AT JACKSONVILLE-1948
Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper - copyright © Karl L. Swartz.