Everything Old Is New Again

If you go back in time, a little over 40 years, Columbia celebrated the arrival of commercial jet service. One of the planes that flew into Columbia was the DC-9. It was a small plane, sat low to the ground (some carried their own stairs for passenger operations) and carried about 100 passengers.

Time went on and the planes got bigger. Columbia had regular service with 727s, M80s, even L-1011s. Then we started to see smaller planes. Twin Otters, and Saabs, moving up to the CRJs that are seen everywhere, who have all but pushed the larger jets out of the local airport.

And now we have about gone full circle. We are about the see the introduction of the modern version of the DC-9/10. An Embraer E-Jet, seating just under 100 passengers, another small low to the ground jet will soon start to service our city.

Just this time it will not be big news and it is not a national trunk airline flying this aircraft. Heck, most people may never be aware that this is happening, They will not know that Shuttle America is operating this flight, they will not know this 'baby jet' is actually about the size of the early commercial jets that were a signal of the jet age coming to town.

They will just see it as a Delta Commuter flight with undersized equipment, not aware that we are just back at where we were in 1965.

Tags
Airlines, History