The new airline was solely dependent on passenger carrying fares for its revenue since it had not entered into any mail or express contracts with the United States Post Office.

[4] The new Braniff venture was profitable within a month of service inauguration but with the weakening economic conditions the company found itself in need of a merger partner.

[1] On December 28, 1934, Braniff purchased Dallas-based Long and Harman Air Lines, that operated passenger and mail routes from Amarillo to Brownsville and Galveston.

[10][11] The new company, owned by Mr. Braniff, operated three 21 passenger Douglas DC-3s that had been allocated to the carrier from the United States War Surplus Administration in February, 1945.

However, the Mexican government suspended Aerovias Braniff's operating permits in October 1946, under pressure from Pan American Airways, Inc., and merger of the two carriers was not approved by the CAB.

Braniff inaugurated new service from Lima, Peru, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with a stop at São Paulo, added in October 1950.

The airline opened a Maintenance and Operations Base with over 433,000 square feet on the east side of Dallas Love Field at 7701 Lemmon Avenue in October 1958.

Over the next 15 years, his expansion into new markets – combined with ideas unorthodox for the airline industry – led Braniff to record financial and operating performance, expanding its earnings tenfold despite typical passenger load factors around 50 percent.

First on the agenda was to overhaul Braniff's public image — including the 1959 Red and Blue El Dorado Super Jet livery which Wells saw as "staid".

[1] At Girard's recommendation the old livery was dropped in favor of a single color on each plane, selected from a palette of rich and iridescent hues like "Chocolate Brown" and "Metallic Purple."

Lavender was dropped after a month, due to the similarity in coloration to the Witch Moth (Ascalapha odorata), a sign of bad luck in Mexican mythology.

These clear plastic bubbles, which resembled Captain Video helmets and which Braniff termed "RainDome", were to be worn between the terminal and the plane to prevent bouffant hairstyles from being disturbed by outside elements.

"RainDomes" were dropped the following year because the helmets cracked easily, there was no place to store them on the aircraft, and new jetway installation at many airports made them unnecessary.

[19] Braniff opened the "Terminal of the Future" at Dallas Love Field in late December 1968 and the Jetrail Car Park people mover monorail system in April 1970.

Jetrail was the world's first fully automated monorail system, taking passengers from remote parking lots at Love Field to the Braniff terminal.

The new 727s could also be outfitted in a mixed cargo/passenger combi aircraft configuration and Braniff did operate "red eye" overnight services carrying cargo in the forward section with seating for 51 passengers in the rear coach compartment.

[1] The Douglas DC-8s were aging, and there was speculation whether new Boeing 757s, Boeing 767s or Airbus A300s would replace the long range DC-8-62s (which flew Braniff's South American routes including nonstops from Los Angeles and New York City to Bogota, Colombia and Lima, Peru as well as nonstops from Miami and New York City to Buenos Aires)[24] with McDonnell Douglas MD-80s possibly being introduced on shorter routes.

At Washington Dulles, the cockpit and cabin crews were replaced by ones from Air France and British Airways for the continued flight to Europe, and the temporary Braniff registration stickers were removed.

[1] Concorde service proved a loss leader but it provided marketing and promotion that created continued brand awareness around the globe for Braniff.

Worth, Kansas City, Chicago, Denver, Atlanta and Miami, by the larger carriers, which were poised to immediately begin invading Braniff's long held territory.

[1][31][32] Although the expansion of 1978 was successful (by late 1979, Braniff's market share moved significantly for the first time since the 1940s from an average of 4.5 percent to an unprecedented 6.5 percent market share all directly related to the expansion program) it did not stop losses from beginning in late 1979 as a result of unprecedented rises in fuel costs and credit card interest rates of 20 percent and higher, coupled with general economic unrest and an unprecedented drop in load factor of 5 points in the Fourth Quarter due do the significant use of American Airlines and United Airlines discount fare coupons during the holiday travel season.

[34] From Los Angeles, new nonstop transpacific Boeing 747 service was flown to Guam and Seoul with direct, no change of plane 747 flights being operated to Hong Kong and Singapore.

Load factors on these routes were considerable but with the at times unfair competition Braniff faced from Asian carriers, it pushed Braniff's breakeven point even higher making the routes unsuccessful once coupled with exorbitant fuel costs across the globe and the loss of significant feed from its domestic system due to severe competition from the new startup carriers and the larger mega airlines.

[34] The main impediment to success after Braniff's expansion was fuel cost, which increased 94 percent during 1979, coupled with strong competition from larger carriers in both the Domestic and Asia/Pacific Systems.

Putnam accepted the offer, but he required that his own financial manager from Southwest Airlines, Philip Guthrie, be allowed to follow him to Braniff.

Competition throughout the Braniff system, and increased service at Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport by American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, both of which operated hubs at DFW, caused further erosion in revenue.

The normally profitable South America system began losing money when fuel prices expanded in 1979 combined with a significant loss of critical feed at Braniff's US gateway cities, which made the legendary Douglas DC-8-62 four-engine long-range jets uneconomical.

Braniff International lauded the CAB's quick decision as the carrier had stated that because of its tenuous cash position that it might have to shut the routes down if an agreement was not approved.

Eastern had recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and planned to use the money from the route sale to repay creditors and regain its financial footing.

Fort Worth Airlines used 56-seat NAMC YS-11 aircraft and flew to destinations in Oklahoma and Texas, but was unable to operate profitably, ceasing flights and filing for bankruptcy in 1985.