■fcUl]
Two workers in Roanoke appeared to be taking
off as they put up one of Piedmont's award
winning ads. The Institute of Outdoor Adver
tising recently selected this series as the best
national/regional outdoor advertisement of the
month. Vice President — Marketing Bill McGee
accepted the award for the Company.
Inside
United Way campaign
Solicitation for
the Pacesetter
campaign started
with a shower of
United Way
pledge cards.
Story on
page five.
Teaching tie tying
Details of the
Tadlock method
of teaching a
new co-pilot
to tie her tie
can be found on
page five.
Final farewell
The FH-227S are
gone. Story of the
delivery flights
is on page
three.
July-October, 1977
Vol. XXVIII, No. 4
Traffic and earnings improve in third quarter
The airline’s third quarter traffic was up
nearly 10 per cent over the same period in
1976. The Company’s net income for July
through September, 1977 increased almost 54
per cent.
July was a record month with passenger
boardings at an all-time high of 399,887.
Revenue passenger miles were up 10.1 per
cent for the July through September period,
from 318,798,237 in 1976 to 350,969,035 in 1977.
Passenger boardings rose 9.5 per cent for
the three months, from 1,052,088 in 1976 to
1,152,464 at the end of September, 1977.
The passenger load factor for the July
through September period was 54.8 per cent.
For the first nine months of 1977, revenue
passenger miles increased 8.3 per cent. There
were 935,969,721 revenue passenger miles flown
through September of 1977 as compared to 864,-
587,161 during the same period of 1976.
Passenger boardings for the nine months
totalled 3,101,451, up 7.1 per cent over the
2,894,670 passengers carried during the first
nine months of 1976.
The passenger load factor for January
through September, 1977 was 51.9 per cent. For
the same period of 1976, it was 51.3 per cent.
Piedmont Aviation, Inc. reported net income
of $3,909,255, or $1.55 per share, for the third
quarter of 1977. This was an increase of 53.6
per cent over the $2,545,513, or $1.01 per share,
for the third quarter of 197 6.
Gross revenues rose 22 per cent from $50.87
million in the third quarter of 1976 to $62.07
million in 1977. Costs and expenses were $58.05
(continued on page six)
Directors okoy new jets, declare dividend
At their regular quarterly meeting in Octo
ber Piedmont’s board of directors announced
plans for the Company to buy three new Boeing
737 jets. The planes, which will be configured
for 107 passengers, will be delivered during
1978.
The directors also declared a cash dividend
of 10 cents per share on the Company’s common
stock.
Payable December 5, 1977 to stockholders
of record on November 18, 1977, this is the
fifteenth cash dividend to be paid by the region
al airline. Piedmont’s first cash dividend was
paid in 1964. In addition, the Company has paid
four 10 per cent stock dividends, in 1961, 1963,
1969 and 1973. This is the second dividend paid
by the Company in 1977, making a total of 20
cents per share paid to stockholders during
1977.
Major off-line route requests filed
Between late July and early October the
Company filed three major off'-line route re
quests with the Civil Aeronautics Board.
The first of these applications for new
authority was announced July 25, 1977 when
Piedmont asked the CAB for authority to
provide service to Boston, Massachusetts. The
Boston Entry application proposes a route
extension from Richmond, Greensboro/High
Point/Winston-Salem and New York/Newark
to Boston.
If approved, Piedmont’s proposal would
provide the only non-stop service in the Rich-
mond-Boston market and first single plane
service between Greensboro/High Point/Win
ston-Salem, Knoxville or Roanoke and Boston.
The Company intends to offer initially four
round trip jet flights into Boston’s Logan In
ternational Airport.
The next of the major off-line route requests
came the latter part of September when the
Company asked the Board for authority to
provide service between seven North Carolina
and Virginia cities and Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas.
This route extension would be to Dallas/Ft.
Worth from Greensboro/High Point/Winston-
Salem and Raleigh/Durham and Richmond and
Norfolk.
If approved, the proposal would provide the
first non-stop service between Greensboro and
Raleigh and Dallas. It would also be the only
single plane service between Richmond and
Norfolk and Dallas.
The third off-line route request was filed
early in October when Piedmont asked the CAB
for temporary authority to provide non-stop
service between Charleston, South Carolina and
Miami, Florida.
The Miami request was made in a joint filing
by Piedmont, the Charleston County Aviation
Authority and the Department of Transporta
tion of the State of Maryland.
The service proposed ia this application
would provide jet flights between Baltimore/
Washington and Greensboro/High Point/Win
ston-Salem to Miami via the Charleston gate
way.
In addition to these off-line route requests
Piedmont asked the CAB, in late September,
to modify its existing two-stop restrictions in
seven Chicago markets to permit one-stop
operations.
The markets involve Chicago, on the one
hand, and Atlanta, New York, Baltimore, Wash
ington, Greensboro/High Point/Winston-Salem,
Raleigh/Durham and Charlotte, on the other
hand.