You read that headline correctly: Southwest Airways is part of Delta Air Lines, according to a graphical family tree chart posted at the official Internet web site of the Delta Flight Museum; and if you do not believe me, take a look and see for yourself…
Southwest Airways is Part of Delta Air Lines.
…or perhaps you might have misinterpreted the headline and should take a second look at it.
Actually, Southwest Airways — not Southwest Airlines — was founded in 1946; and in 1958 became Pacific Air Lines. In 1968, Pacific Air Lines merged with Bonanza Air Lines and West Coast Airlines to become AirWest, which then became Hughes Airwest when the airline was purchased by Howard Hughes in 1970. Republic Airlines — which purchased Hughes Airwest in 1980 — was purchased by Northwest Airlines in 1986; and, of course, Northwest Airlines was acquired by Delta Air Lines in 2008.
Southwest Airways is one of greater than 40 airlines in more than 100 years of the aviation history of Delta Air Lines. The early international destinations of Delta Air Lines were the result of its first airline merger in 1953 with Chicago and Southern Air Lines.
I actually met an agent at a reservations call center of Delta Air Lines in Seattle in 2012 — only mere months before it closed — who told me that she began her career at Bonanza Air Lines, of which I had never heard until that point.
Another interesting fact is that in addition to Southwest Airways, both Northwest Airlines and Northeast Airlines eventually became a part of Delta Air Lines. The airline could have completed its collection of airlines whose name is derived from what is know as either an ordinal direction, intermediate direction, or intercardinal direction had it acquired either version of Southeast Airlines before the most recent version of that airline abruptly ceased operations on Tuesday, November 30, 2004.
Final Boarding Call
Looking at the history of logos and brands of airlines in general over the years is always interesting to me.
One of the things I enjoyed viewing during the multiple visits I paid to the Delta Heritage Museum — now known as the Delta Flight Museum — over the years was viewing the graphical family tree chart of Delta Air Lines.
If you are wondering what happened to the aforementioned history of logos and brands of both Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines in the latest version of the graphical family tree of Delta Air Lines, fear not, as each of the following airlines has its own dedicated site at the official Internet web site of the Delta Flight Museum:
- Delta Air Lines
- Chicago and Southern Air Lines
- Northeast Airlines
- Western Airlines
- Pan American Airways or Pan Am
- Northwest Airlines
One confusing part of the latest version of the graphical family tree of Delta Air Lines is that the current “widget” logo is used for Fox Flying Service, which was acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1929. This needs to be corrected, in my opinion, as I was briefly under the false and inaccurate impression that the current “widget” logo was actually first designed before 1929.
For additional information and photographs pertaining to the Delta Flight Museum, please refer to these articles written by me:
- Delta Flight Museum: Photographs Inside Hangar 1 of the Official Venue of the 2015 Freddie Awards
- Delta Flight Museum: Photographs Inside Hangar 2 of the Official Venue of the 2015 Freddie Awards
- Delta Flight Museum: Photographs Outside of the Official Venue of the 2015 Freddie Awards
- The 2015 Freddie Awards: Hangar 2 of the Delta Flight Museum and The Spirit of Delta
- The 2015 Freddie Awards: A Map to the Delta Flight Museum
In the meantime, I hope that you enjoyed this little slice of airline trivia and history.
Photograph ©2024 by Brian Cohen.
