Contract Air Mail Route 19 - the first Contract
Air Mail Route to include scheduled night flying - provided overnight air mail
service along the East Coast – including four cities with Federal Reserve
District Bank offices. The route was segmented into two operating divisions:
Northern Division (New York to Richmond) and Southern Division (Richmond to Atlanta).
Maintenance facilities and additional aircraft were kept at Richmond (Byrd
Field). Contract Air Mail Route 19 connected with Contract Air Mail Route 1 and
Contract Air Mail Route 23, unifying Contract Air Mail service between Boston
and New Orleans.
It was a remarkable feat of rescheduling to solve the problems encountered during the inaugural night. All of the mail in both directions arrived before banks and commerce opened for business on May 2, 1928.
Official cachets were furnished all points
by the Post Office Department. Although the official cachets prepared for the
route show the date as May 2, 1928, inaugural flights were made on May 1 from
every airfield on the route except southbound from Greensboro and Spartanburg
and northbound from Richmond, Washington, and Philadelphia.
This cover was carried on the inaugural Contract Air Mail Route 19 flight from Spartanburg, South Carolina to Greensboro, North Carolina (where it was backstamped) and is listed in the Contract Air Mail Flights (CAM) Section of The American Air Mail Catalogue as 18N8.
Pitcairn Aviation sold its airline and air mail contracts (Contract Air Mail Routes 19 and 25) in order to concentrate on aircraft manufacturing in early 1929. The airline changed ownership twice, and on January 17, 1930 the surviving airline’s name was changed to Eastern Air Transport, Incorporated.
Texas Air Corporation, parent corporation of Continental Airlines, New York Air and People Express, purchased Eastern Airlines on October 1, 1986. Eastern Airlines continued to operate as a separate airline. Operations were not integrated with any of the Texas Air owned companies.
As a result of labor disputes, Eastern Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and significantly cut back on its operation on March 9, 1989. After the initial reduction, Eastern Airlines slowly rebuilt its system with service to a few of the points previously served with a smaller number of flights. Eastern sold its lucrative “Shuttle” operation to Donald Trump and, in addition, sold off a large number of aircraft.
Eastern Air Lines ceased operations on January 18, 1991. This concluded the long history of an airline that could trace its roots back to May 1, 1928, with the first service of Pitcairn Aviation, Inc. In 1990, Eastern Airlines sold its Central and South American routes to American Airlines and had been in receivership since declaring bankruptcy on March 9, 1989.