Newspapers / Piedmont Aviation Employee Newsletter / Feb. 1, 1954, edition 1 / Page 3
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PIEDMONT AIRLINES BECOMES FIRST LOCAL SERVICE AIRLINE IN THE UNITED STATES TO CARRY A MILLION PASSENGERS "ONE IN A MILLION" - Piedmont's millionth passenger. Miss Ruth Ann Gee, Hollins College student from RichmonctVirginia, is shown with Captain Floyd Stickney before boarding Flight 32, February 26, 1954, from Roonoke to Richmond, Virginio. Piedmont's first passenger, Mr. W.D. Turner, Shell Oil Company, is shown boarding flight on February 20, 1948. Piedmont Airlines became the first local service airline in the United States to carry a million passengers. The "millionth passenger" was pretty Ruth Ann Gee, a junior at Hollins College who was flying to Richmond for a weekend with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Edward F. Gee. Miss Gee, whose father is a vice president of the State Planters Bank of Richmond, was presented a bouquet of roses by Roanoke's Vice-Mayor Robert W. Woody just before she boarded the airliner at Woodrum Field for the hour flight home. Being selected for the honor came as a big surprise to the pretty college girl but flying itself is routine to her. She said she prefers flying to any other form of travel. But it was a big event for Piedmont Airlines which flew its first passenger, an oil comp any executive, February 20, 1948. Since then Piedmont planes have rolled up a total of 23,955,245 air miles. Vice-Mayor Woody, in congratulating Miss Gee and wishing her a happy flight home also praised Piedmont's record os a local service airline, noting that it is the first of the nation's vitally important local ser vice lines to reach the million passenger mark. Piedmont serves 26 cities in seven states with its operation headquarters in Winston- Salem, N. C. It uses 24-passenger DC-3's. Since its first year of operation. Piedmont has also carried 4,738,198 pounds of air mail and 4,516,248 pounds of air express, and 4,833,960 pounds of air freight. The crew on the Piedmont plane that car ried Miss Gee to Richmond was Captain Floyd Stickney, Pilot Lee D'Armond and Purser Davis Mellott. They are based at Norfolk. ************* PIEDMONT CONTINUES TO BE A RECORD BREAKER Setting records by Piedmont is certainly nothing new - but we've reached the point where new records are going to be tnore difficult in the future. Reoching the one million passenger mark before any other local service airline is particularly note worthy in view of the fact that several of the leading carriers began operations more than a year before Piedmont. Looking ahead - when can we expect to reach the 2,000,000 mark? Somebody could make a good guessing contest out of that. In 1953 we carried about 270,000 passen gers. That's about 45,000 more than we carried in 1952. At that rate of increase it looks like on easy matter to get to two million passen gers in another three years - maybe less. That would be half the time required to get our first million. And it would un doubtedly be another record smasher among all local service airlines for Piedmont. But just for fun - let's try to do it in two years I ************ Total passengers flown in 1953: 270,524 An increase of 587% over 1948. -3-
Piedmont Aviation Employee Newsletter
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Feb. 1, 1954, edition 1
3
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