PIA – A History: Air Service, 1932-1937

The last installment covered the air mail fiasco, which actually prompted airlines to place greater emphasis on passengers but also led to greater federal regulation. Now it is time to analyze commercial airline service at Peoria’s Municipal Airport during 1932-1937.

American Airlines, Etc. 

When American Airways added Peoria as a stop on its Chicago-New Orleans mail route, it was using nine-passenger Fairchild “Pilgrim” F100 aircraft. Service began December 10, 1932. The schedule below, culled from an American Airways timetable dated October 27, 1933, shows five arriving and five departing flights daily, including one in each direction on a Chicago-Peoria-Springfield-St. Louis-Jackson (MS)-Memphis route, one in each direction on a Detroit-Chicago-Peoria-Springfield-St. Louis route and a northbound St. Louis-Springfield-Peoria-Chicago flight.

The Air Mail Fiasco, and the subsequent termination of existing contracts, took Peoria off the air mail routes effective Tuesday, February 20, 1934. This was the second time in just under three years that Peoria lost air mail service. Nevertheless, the Roosevelt Administration, stung by unnecessary deaths of inexperienced Army Air Corps flyers using inadequate aircraft, returned air mail routes to private carriers. And in the process, Peoria gained a second airline.

Meanwhile, runway construction and work on drainage ditches posed a safety hazard forcing American Airways to suspend its Peoria stop on Chicago-St. Louis passenger flights. Of note, the carrier renamed itself “American Airlines” during this suspension. Schedules dated June 15, 1934 show the Peoria stop but omits times. A note tells us that 

Service will be re-established to Peoria in the near future. Call any American Airlines office for the latest information. 

American Airlines wasn’t yet satisfied with Peoria’s airfield, so it delayed service until July 1.

A Second Carrier

In June 1933, Pacific Seaboard Air Lines began flying between Los Angeles (Glendale) and San Francisco (Mills Field) with multiple stops in between. When air mail routes came up for bid in 1934, Pacific Seaboard submitted and won Air Mail Route 8 between Chicago, Peoria, Springfield, St. Louis, Memphis, Jackson (MS) and New Orleans. On June 17 that year, the carrier’s fleet of five, 6-seat Bellanca CH-300 Pacemakers were redeployed to the so-called “The Valley Level Route.” Passenger service began on these flights July 17.

Schedules provided by the Peoria Journal during this period were used to create this timetable for scheduled air passenger flights at Peoria Municipal Airport in July 1934.

As can be expected, the name “Pacific Seaboard Air Lines” made no sense with the move eastward, so on February 1, 1935 the carrier was renamed “Chicago & Southern Air Lines.” Eight-passenger, tri-motored Stinson T SM-6000Bs replaced the single-engine Bellancas in 1935. The Stinsons served as a stopgap before delivery of ten-seat Lockheed 10B Electras in 1936.

Sometime after American Airlines actually resumed service, 12-passenger Curtis Condor II bi-plane sleepers operated all but the southbound Chicago-Ft. Worth flight, which American flew with a single-engine, eight passenger Vultee. This April 28, 1935 timetable denotes that all flights were operated with Vultees. Thanks to federal restrictions on the use of single-engine passenger airliners, the Vultee’s stint in the American Airlines fleet was short-lived, and these were replaced by Stinson A Tri-motors.

The DC-3 

During the 1930s, growing passenger traffic led to the introduction of larger planes on the nation’s air routes. Boeing’s Model 247 was an advanced, twin engine prop which could hold ten passengers. The plane’s all-metal design was a clear safety improvement. But Boeing would not sell it to other carriers before fulfilling a 60-plane order from its affiliate (and United Air Lines predecessor) Boeing Air Transport. Unable to obtain Boeing 247s, Transcontinental & Western Air lobbied for an aircraft that would become the Douglas DC-1. The plane acheived its first flight in 1933. Production aircraft first flown the next year, were designated "DC-2" and could accommodate 14 passengers.

Before the DC-2 was even built, American Airlines persuaded Douglas to design and build a larger version which would accommodate side-by-side sleeper births. Appropriately named the DC-3, the aircraft first flew on December 17, 1935, which happened to be the 32nd anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ historic first flight. American received its first examples in 1936. The DC-3 would revolutionize air travel worldwide, and more than 16,000 had been built when production of all civilian, military and licensed copies ended in 1952.

Inadequate Facilities

Although the DC-2/3 was built for ruggedness, and could operate from dirt or grass runways if necessary, Peoria’s Municipal Airport posed a serious problem. On December 1, 1936, American Airlines started using DC-2s Peoria because it was a flagstop on Chicago-Fort Worth Route 30. But due to runway length (four strips each only 2,500′), construction with inadequate material (shale surface) and obstructions to takeoffs and approaches (probably trees), operation of the big Douglas planes quickly proved dangerous. For most of the year, air temperatures ensured adequate runway length. Summer months were a different story. In June of that year, both American Airlines and Chicago & Southern Air Lines (which did not yet operate the DC-3) requested the United States Bureau of Air Commerce order improvements to facilities to ensure safe operations.

On July 10, the Illinois Commerce Commission granted American Airlines the right to either suspend DC-3 service at Peoria or restricted passenger loads to just ten. Given the plane’s 21 passenger seats, this would prove economical. Shortly, the Bureau of Air Commerce ordered not only the suspension of commercial air service at Peoria, but all flights, pending safety improvements effective July 16. The city was thus eliminated as a stop on Chicago & Southern Air Lines’ Chicago-New Orleans Route 8 and American Airlines’ Chicago-St. Louis flights and Chicago-Fort Worth Route 30.

Although Peoria Airport Inc. president (and also Peoria Journal publisher) Carl Slane noted that improvements had been planned for some time, the fact is that Peoria Municipal Airport was privately-owned, and received no government subsidies. Obtaining funds for clearing obstructions and extending the runways required operation and control by a government entity.

Events leading to the restoration of Peoria’s airline service will be covered the next installment of this series.

- David P. Jordan