Braniff International Airways began in 1928 flying between Tulsa and Oklahoma City and grew into one of the more inventive US airlines of the postwar decades. Under chairman Harding Lawrence in the 1960s and 1970s it painted its planes in bold colours, had Alexander Calder decorate a DC-8, and ran the only domestic Concorde service in US history. By late 1979 it held about 6.5% of the US market and was earning more than $1.4 billion a year, a company record.
Deregulation, signed into law in late 1978, swept away the protected routes Braniff’s economics had relied on. The airline added capacity aggressively just as fuel prices nearly doubled two years running, and new low-cost rivals attacked its unprotected routes. With load factors falling and debt climbing, Braniff grounded its entire fleet and filed for bankruptcy on 12 May 1982 — the first major US airline to fail after deregulation. Later attempts to revive the name never took.
Worth remembering
- Braniff's 'End of the Plain Plane' campaign from 1965 painted its aircraft in fourteen bold colours and hired the fashion designer Halston to create the crew uniforms — one of the most distinctive branding efforts in airline history.
- In 1979-1980 Braniff flew the Concorde on US domestic routes under an interchange deal with British Airways and Air France, the only US carrier ever to fly Concorde passengers overland across the continental United States.
Sources
- Braniff ceased all air operations on 12 May 1982 after 54 years; by late 1979 it ran 115 aircraft to 81 destinations with about 6.5% of the US market. Wikipedia
- Braniff was the only US carrier ever to fly the Concorde on domestic overland routes, under an interchange agreement operated in 1979-1980. Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Braniff's 'End of the Plain Plane' campaign from 1965 put its aircraft in bold colours and hired Halston to design crew uniforms; fuel prices then rose sharply in 1979 and 1980, contributing to the 1982 bankruptcy. Wikipedia
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