Delta, 1970

[Christian Page, RAI]

Christian,

I was examining the schedule in preparation for upload as well as swapping planes to make it a later 1970's fleet for my personal use, and I noticed there's flights to and from EGLL. Does the timetable say anything about these being an interchange? My memory is probably fuzzy on this, as it's been a decade since I read the book "Delta - A History of an Airline", but I could swear that Delta did not have European authority of its own until 1978, when they were granted the Atlanta-London route, and that was to Gatwick, not Heathrow. I'm wondering if this wasn't an interchange with Pan Am out of Dulles? I seem to recall that they did have such a setup at some time, but I couldn't tell you the when.

[klm617]

If it is flight 106/107 it is a Pan Am interchange they operated over Dullas to London if you search airliners.net for Delta 747 there are a few shots of the Delta 747 at Heathrow.

[ElliottD]

Pan Am DC-8s interest me for some reason. I seem to recall reading that after Pan Am they went to Delta and operated an interchange service to LHR. There are a number of photos on Airliners.net that show this also:

www.airliners.net/open.file/1062293/L/

www.airliners.net/open.file/1017172/L/

www.airliners.net/open.file/1028411/L/

and there are other photos too.

[chrisP]

It is listed in the TT as the (famous) Delta/Pan Am interchange:
"Through jet service between New Orleans - Atlanta - Washington and London - Paris"

As klm617 and Elitott said, these were operated by Delta aircraft and the DC-8 used were actually ex-Pan Am aircraft.

[Christian Page, RAI]

Interesting that Delta equipment was used, most of PA's interchanges utilized their equipment. A Juan Trippe ego thing, I guess.

[rpm]

According to my Delta 2/1/76 timetable, by that time it was a Delta DC-8 KATL-KIAD and a Pan Am 747 KIAD-EGLL.

Thanks.
RPM

[chrisP]

For 1970, I'm pretty sure they were Delta birds: the TT lists the equipment for those flights as DC-8 and Pan Am had disposed of its '8s by late 1969 (according to REG Davies). Of course, that doesn't prove the CREWS weren't PAA...

[rpm]

Yes, right up through 1975 I believe, both legs were flown by Delta aircraft

RPM.

[Christian Page, RAI]

chrisp said:

For 1970, I'm pretty sure they were Delta birds: the TT lists the equipment for those flights as DC-8 and Pan Am had disposed of its '8s by late 1969 (according to REG Davies). Of course, that doesn't prove the CREWS weren't PAA...

They were out of IAD - by law, they had to be. While it carried a DL flight number, it operated under a PA flight number - kind of like a codeshare, but with the added bit of swapping crews.