California Central Airlines
CCA slightly preceded, and during its existence was bigger than, its contemporary and competitor, Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA).
[3] In 1948, ATC was one of the top four leading irregular airlines offering scheduled service from New York to Los Angeles, which drew a September 1949 order from the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) to stop telling the public it was offering scheduled service.
[4] ATC had also applied for official approval to fly scheduled service on that route from the CAB, which was denied in October 1948.
In 2 April 1947, the Shermans incorporated California Central Airlines,[8] a separate company, to offer intrastate air travel within California, initially on the Burbank airport (then known as Lockheed Air Terminal) to San Francisco Airport route, with the first flight on January 2, 1949 and equipment provided by ATC.
[15] CCA ultimately extended the Burbank-San Francisco route to San Diego in the south and Sacramento in the north.
[16] It added Oakland and smaller points in California such as Salinas,[17] Inyokern and Muroc[14] (today's Edwards Air Force Base).
In 1953, the US Senate Committee on Small Business noted that CCA had helped shift 65% of transport between the two cities to air, and asked the CAB to foster the same thing on the east coast.
[18] In 1952, ATC started flying to Hawaii under the name California Hawaiian Airlines (CHA) using a Lockheed Constellation, with a similar livery to CCA, described as "the plane with the candy-striped tail".
In 1953 PSA charged lower fares ($11.70) with its DC-3 service than did CCA with its faster Martin 2-0-2s ($13.50) on the Los Angeles to Bay Area route.
[28] In November 1953, CCA filed a securities registration seeking to sell debt and equity, where it was revealed the company had a significant working capital shortfall.
[42][43][44] This version lasted until August 1957,[11] its disappearance preceded by CPUC action against the airline for failing to refund over 200 customers, resulting in difficult headlines.
