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In 1949, Kenny Friedkin, a flight trainer and test pilot, formed Pacific Southwest Airlines or PSA, a commuter airline operating in California. Based out of San Diego’s Lindbergh Field, where Friedkin previously ran a flight school, the airline began weekly round-trip flights between San Diego and Oakland with a single leased Douglas DC-3. Two years later, the route’s terminus moved to San Francisco. By the end of the decade, the airline added the Douglas DC-4 and the Lockheed L-188 Electra turboprop to its fleet and offered nearly one hundred flights a week to numerous destinations throughout the state. By the mid-1960s, the airline had grown substantially and was flying record numbers of passengers. It added the turbojet Boeing 727 and McDonnell Douglas DC-9 to its fleet and expanded its intrastate routes to include Sacramento, San Jose, and Ontario.
This image was posted on October 07, 2022.