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How Icelandair Opened Up Air Travel in the 1950s
- United857 9y agoOne of Icelandair's main advantages was the geographic location of Iceland as a natural hub between America and Europe. This same hub strategy would also be successfully employed much later by airlines from the Gulf states like Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar.
- tuna-piano 9y agoOne interesting thing - the DC-3 plane variety mentioned in the article is still in regular commercial service today. The DC-3 is literally 80+ years old, but hundreds are still in service - including regular passenger commercial service in Canada. It is the only cargo plane to have an enemy kill in WW2, when a Japanese Kamakazee ran into the DC-3 and broke off the DC-3's wing. The Kamakazee crashed, but thh DC-3 flew on. http://archive.jsonline.com/business/96701784.html http://archive.jsonline.com/business/96701784.html http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/04/travel/aviation-douglas-dc-3/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/04/travel/aviation-douglas-dc-3/
- jpatokal 9y agoThat exact anecdote is in the friendly article, with better spelling.
- tuna-piano 9y agoHa, whoops. I read the article, then remembered I had read about it previously. Then I read a few more things, and must have forgotten which stories were in the original article.
- ceejayoz 9y agoWiki says two thousand are still flying, which is pretty stunning. Remarkable aircraft.