Working in the aviation industry for over 25 years, I have seen airline companies come and go.
I have attempted to document some of those which have gone under, but only those which I came across myself and was able to photograph.

On the morning of 01Jan1914 Mayor A.C. Pheil of Petersburg,Florida settled into the open cockpit of the St.Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line's 26-foot-long Benoist flying boat. Beside him sat Tony Jannus, the pilot, nattily dressed in white slacks, dark blazer and bow tie. At 10 a.m. Jannus gunned his 75-horsepower engine, skimmed across the placid waters of the St.Petersburg Yacht Basin and took to the air over Tampa Bay; 23 minutes later the plane touched down offshore from Tampa, 18 miles away. The world's first regularly scheduled passenger airline had just completed its inaugural run.
The fledgling carrier was short-lived. It folded with the waning of the Florida tourist season in the spring of 1914 and was not revived. But in its brief span it carried more than 1200 passengers - at 5 dollars per flight - without mishap. An airline come and gone... with many, many more to follow.

Hopefully you will enjoy revisiting some of these operators, those that faded into the shadows of history while loosing their footing in the struggle that is commercial aviation. At least some I happen to have came across, in my own time of 'come & gone'. Please note that photography of airliners is not a regular effort for me, so the list is far from complete.

UPDATE: my airline plane spotting activities has diminished considerably since 2009, all but ceased actually, and as such this gallery sees less and less activity; sorry about that.

"I always say a boy can learn more at an airport than at any school." -Homer Simpson-

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