Founder Clement Melville Keys Ceased operations 1930 | Founded 1928 | |
 | ||
Transcontinental Air Transport (T-A-T) was an airline founded in 1928 by Clement Melville Keys that merged in 1930 with Western Air Express to form what became TWA. Keys enlisted the help of Charles Lindbergh to design a transcontinental network to get government airmail contracts. Lindbergh established numerous airports across the country in this effort.
Contents
History
On July 7, 1929 transcontinental trips began. It initially offered a 51-hour train/plane trip with the first leg on the Pennsylvania Railroad overnight from New York City to Columbus, Ohio, where passengers boarded a Ford Trimotor aircraft at Port Columbus International Airport that stopped in Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Wichita, and finally Waynoka, Oklahoma. There, passengers caught the Santa Fe Railway for an overnight trip to Clovis, New Mexico, where they would take a second Ford Trimotor flight to Albuquerque, Winslow, Az., Los Angeles, or San Francisco. Its slogan was "Harnessing the Plane and the Iron Horse." One-way fare from New York to Los Angeles (including a lower berth each night on the train) was $338.
Cynics were to deride its TAT abbreviation as "Take A Train."
The Ford Trimotor service was one of the first to offer meals en route. It was also one of the first to be geared toward passenger service (while most airlines at the time were focused on transporting air mail).
In 1929 it merged with Maddux Air Lines and in 1930, during what was to become the Air Mail scandal, it merged with Western Air Express to form Transcontinental & Western Air (T&WA) that later became TWA.
First air crash
On September 3, 1929 a westbound TAT flight crashed on Mt. Taylor in New Mexico, with loss of all aboard. The Associated Press said it was the first plane crash on a regular commercial land route. The September crash was the first of three serious accidents for TAT over the next five months.
Museum
The Western New Mexico Aviation Heritage Museum in Grants, New Mexico has a restored light and arrow which was used to direct pilots along the way.