Western Air Express's Beginnings in the 1920s

Originally written in 2022, edited in 2024 :)

The history of Western Air Express, a U.S. Air Mail service, goes all the way back to 1925. It was incorporated with then President of the United States of America Harris "Pop" Hanshue, operating out of an old hangar that originally served as a movie studio. It owned six open-cockpit Douglas M-2 planes and had 24 employees. Today, Western Air Express operates a fleet of eight planes of varying models and has 10-50 employees as a private company, making 7,000,000 dollars a year in revenue.

The start of their path to these accomplishments started on July 13, 1925, when they were founded. A year later, on April 17, 1926, Western's first commercial flight of 651 miles from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City via Las Vegas was successful. The pilot of the Douglas M-2 biplane utilized was Maury Graham. On May 23, Western began its first passenger service. The passenger flight lasted 8 hours and costed $90, Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, and was piloted by Jimmie Jones. The two passengers present on the flight were Ben Redman and J. A. Tomilson. Both sat on mail sacks. Later that day, two more passengers flew from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City.

In the same year of 1926, Western boarded its first female passenger, Maude Campbell. Campbell was a young secretary who flew from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles via Las Vegas. She borrowed a leather flying suit and goggles from a pilot and sat between sacks of mail in an open-cockpit Douglas M-2. Campbell's 650 mile trip took 6 hours.

Western completed all 518 of its flights during 1926, successfully carrying 258 passengers and delivering 70,230 pounds of mail safely. In 1927, Western's Los Angeles mail service accounted for 40% of the U.S's airmail. They become the first airline to pay a cash dividend of $72.60 per share to stockholders. They begin shipments on September 1st.

A year later, in 1928, Western began a passenger-only no-mail experiment funded by a grant from the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics. Meals are served by stewards to passengers on a Fokker F-10, the first tri-motor airliner in the U.S. This service lasts for about a year.

Western Air Express still functions as an private airmail service today.

Sources

  • Flightradar24. Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map. Flightradar24, https://www.flightradar24.com/data/airlines/wae.
  • Signalhire. Western Air Express Overview - Signalhire.com. https://www.signalhire.com/companies/western-air-express.
  • Zoominfo. Western Air Express - Overview, News & Competitors - Zoominfo. https://www.zoominfo.com/c/western-air-express/41926862.
  • Deltamuseum. "History." 1920's, https://www.deltamuseum.org/exhibits/delta-history/family-tree/western-airlines/decades/1920s.
  • Museum, SFO. 14 June 2014, https://www.facebook.com/SFOmuseum/posts/in-1926-maude-campbell-became-the-first-female-passenger-to-fly-aboard-a-western/66003998085589.

    • All sources accessed 20 Aug. 2022.