AIRWAYS HISTORY Mackey Airlines
24 By 1977 , the route map of Mackey International Airlines looked a lot like that of the original Mackey Airlines . // DAVID H . STRINGER COLLECTION
25 Convair 440 N9307 was photographed at Fort Lauderdale . // PAUL ZOGG COLLECTION
25
26 Col . Mackey got further permission from the CAB to operate even larger equipment , this time 85-passenger DC-6s . The Board finally gave commuter carrier Mackey International certification as a full-fledged airline in 1978 , but it was too late . The company went bankrupt , Col . Mackey retired , and his airline was sold to Charter Air of Gainesville , Florida . DC-6 N37580 was photographed landing at Miami . // PAUL ZOGG COLLECTION
26
of certification came the Airline Deregulation Act of October 1978 . Even though Col . Mackey had alluded to the possibility of purchasing used Boeing 737s , it was a pipe dream to think that passengers would continue to flock to an airline flying outdated piston-engine props on long overwater flights in the jet age .
Before the end of the year , Mackey International declared bankruptcy , the DC-6Bs were parked , and Colonel Mackey retired . The company was sold to Charter Air of Gainesville , Florida , in December 1978 .
MACKEY III
Charter Air retained the more familiar Mackey name for its scheduled operations , which consisted of routes within Florida , plus a few destinations in the Bahamas . Flights were operated with Convair 580s , 440s , and the Piper Navajo .
Scheduled services of the reincarnated Mackey Airlines were not profitable and were terminated at the end of 1979 .
Next , the company purchased three Douglas DC-8-51s , which were used primarily on charters to Las Vegas , but the carrier continued to lose money and Mackey Airlines folded for the last time in October 1981 .
Colonel Joseph Mackey – a luminary in the history of commercial aviation in Florida and the Bahamas – passed away in February 1982 .
www . airwaysmag . com AIRWAYS MAGAZINE AUGUST 2024 71