Until a high-profile 1982 aircraft crash in Washington DC, Air Florida was considered an early success story of U.S. airline deregulation, having expanded rapidly from its original Florida network, including internationally to Europe and Latin America.

Air Florida was initially organized as an intrastate airline by a group including Miami native Eli Timoner as chairman, Bill Spohrer as president, Jim Woodman as VP, Robert Bussey as Secretary and Reed Cleary as chief pilot.

The inability to settle on an aircraft delayed Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval and thus start of the carrier.

[7] Ted Griffin, a former marketing director of Eastern Air Lines, became operational head from mid 1972,[6] eventually taking the president title.

[8] The airline operated its first flights on September 27, 1972,[3] offering twice-daily service in Florida between Miami (MIA), Orlando (MCO) and St. Petersburg (PIE) on "triangle" routings of MIA-MCO-PIE-MIA and MIA-PIE-MCO-MIA with a one way introductory fare of $12.00.

[12] The airline was acquired by a Timoner-controlled publicly listed company, Investment Property Builders (IPB) as a way to give it a stock price.

[2] In 1975, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused Timoner and a Swiss bank (among others) of manipulating the IPB stock price in 1971.

[14] The airline was chronically underfunded and unable to upgrade to jets, which caused some travelers to avoid Air Florida, leaving Timoner scrambling for funds.

[17] In mid-1977, Acker became CEO and chairman, Timoner became president and COO, and Ted Griffin left the company.

The CAB relaxed its stance in advance of the effective date and allowed Air Florida to fly to Washington, DC, and, in the Bahamas, Rock Sound and Nassau by year-end 1978.

[2][21][22] No longer confined to its home state, Air Florida under Ed Acker was aggressive: On August 27, 1981, Ed Acker left Air Florida to take up the CEO position at Pan Am, saying that Cunard told him the position of captain of the Titanic was no longer available, so he was seeking a comparable challenge.

[25] On January 13, 1982, Air Florida suffered a fatal crash in Washington DC, with a Boeing 737 aircraft hitting a bridge and ending in the Potomac River.

Video of rescue efforts were widely broadcast, as was an iconic image of the broken tail of the Air Florida aircraft being pulled from the river.

[31] Later in the year the National Transportation Safety Board investigation blamed the crash on the Air Florida pilots.

A substantial financial loss in the fourth quarter of 1981 was driven by fierce fare wars,[33] including by Pan Am now run by Ed Acker.

From 4Q83, the company did not meet its obligation of filing CAB reports and when it collapsed Air Florida had $27mm in accounts receivable – amounts uncollected from travel agencies, credit card processors, other airlines and so forth.

[54] Towards the end, the company funded itself in part by not making required payments to the employee credit union, payroll taxes and medical insurance.

Many parties objected to the bankruptcy court, but Midway had the only offer so the judge approved it, putting 300 Air Florida employees back to work.

Midway added more leisure destinations (like Phoenix and Las Vegas) to accompany Florida and by 1987 the 737 fleet increased to 12.

Worth (DFW Airport), Texas; Düsseldorf, Germany; Frankfurt, Germany; Houston (Hobby Airport), Texas; Paris, France; Madrid, Spain; Providence, Rhode Island; Providenciales, Turk and Caicos Islands; St. Petersburg, Florida; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Savannah, Georgia; and Zürich, Switzerland with mainline jet service at various times during its existence.