Alaska Airlines... (Anchorage, Houston: legally, suite, company) - (AK) - Page 5 - City-Data Forum

warptman · 03-02-2009, 11:46 PM

I also wish Reeve was still flying. Those Electra's were very sweet old planes! Even the 727's they had were good.

starlite9 · 03-03-2009, 12:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson

Read that more carefully. After their financial situation neared banckrupcy, they tried to move their operations to the Lower-48 to get away from competing with Alaska Air here in Alaska (which is what took them down).

MarkAir originally had had a deal with Alaska Airlines to feed them passengers and not compete in Alaska. It was when AA reneged on that and began flying the same Alaska routes that MarkAir went down the tube.

Wien on the other hand was doing fine until they tried to expand to the Lower-48. When the assets were worth more than the stock, the then current owner (Jim Flood) liquidated and walked off with millions in his pocket.

They had been expanded to the lower 48 for years....

The fact that MarkAir isn't listed as a reason in Wapedia of it's failure, is beside the fact. I did maintance on both of the Companies ground equipment in Anchorage and out in the remote sites when needed, with my company and when Wien Filed for Chapter 11 and then Chapter 7 in 1984, it cost me about $60,000.00+ in past due accounts.

Bundy, David H., P.C., lawyers in Anchorage, AK, Alaska

I got to sit in on both Bankrupty's because MarkAir owed my company close to $146,000.00. Of which I got about four hundred dollars total from both filings....

starlite9 · 03-03-2009, 12:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by warptman

I also wish Reeve was still flying. Those Electra's were very sweet old planes! Even the 727's they had were good.

Coming back from Dutch, the Electra's were a very easy plane to fall asleep in, the seats were big and the engines were just purring.... very quiet ride compared to what is flying now.

Bob Reeve was one of my idle's when I was a kid, I had met him when I was about nine at an open house and he gave me a tour of the plane and was really nice to me, which was not what he was suppose to be like.

When I learned to fly in Valdez, I got to see a bunch of old photos of his Valdez flying years when he took off from the mud flats on homemade skis, hit the water and ran across it on the skis before taking off. Had the engine "burped", he would have been toast.... He landed on the side of mountains to supply the miners.

His Son-in-Law Don Sheldon was another pilot that flew out of Talkeetna that I had met as a kid too. Didn't know they were related until I had read his book "Wager with the Wind".

warptman · 03-03-2009, 12:29 AM

Don Sheldon was taken from us way too early. It was before my time. I'm a big aviation buff if that wasn't obvious from all my plane pics.

Floyd_Davidson · 03-03-2009, 12:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by starlite9

They had been expanded to the lower 48 for years.... The fact that MarkAir isn't listed as a reason is beside the fact.

Wien had only expanded to the Lower-48 in the 2-3 years before losing it. MarkAir, if it had anything at all to do with it, was merely the straw that broke the camel's back. Wien had been in financial trouble immediately upon expanding to the Lower-48, was suffering for 2-3 years, and MarkAir had just barely begun jet service to the bush (but was not competing with Wien as a bush air service) all in 1984 when Wien was liquidated.

Granted that if Wien had been even much better off at the time, MarkAir probably never would have entered the market to begin with, and if they had Wien would have eventually gone down the tube because of them. But Wien was already essentially gone by the time MarkAir even began operations.

starlite9 · 03-03-2009, 12:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by warptman

Don Sheldon was taken from us way too early. It was before my time. I'm a big aviation buff if that wasn't obvious from all my plane pics.

Didn't drink or smoke and died of stomach cancer... Too much coffee, working long hours and worry about bills I guess. Way too young....

Mary Cary had a heck of a crush on him and wrote about him in the paper all the time. At her "Mountain Haus", she had his photos all over the place and where he had taken her up flying. In spite of he fact he tried to avoid her, and was married to Rita Sheldon/Reeve.

Floyd_Davidson · 03-03-2009, 12:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by starlite9

Didn't drink or smoke and died of stomach cancer... Too much coffee I guess.

I don't know if Sheldon ever smoked, but he could drink like a fish!

However, he was a very nice person, even when quite intoxicated.

starlite9 · 03-03-2009, 12:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson

Wien had only expanded to the Lower-48 in the 2-3 years before losing it. MarkAir, if it had anything at all to do with it, was merely the straw that broke the camel's back. Wien had been in financial trouble immediately upon expanding to the Lower-48, was suffering for 2-3 years, and MarkAir had just barely begun jet service to the bush (but was not competing with Wien as a bush air service) all in 1984 when Wien was liquidated.

Granted that if Wien had been even much better off at the time, MarkAir probably never would have entered the market to begin with, and if they had Wien would have eventually gone down the tube because of them. But Wien was already essentially gone by the time MarkAir even began operations.

They started flying stateside in June of 1979 and expanded from there, almost six years before they closed the door. They had been competing for some time in the outside markets, MarkAir took a really big chunk out of Wien's business intentionally (as well as directly competing in Alaska Airlines market), he then offered to sell to Wien, but they refused, and then after going broke, tried to go after Alaska Air, but they were much bigger with deeper pockets than what Neil had, Alaska won.

Alaska's Digital Archives : Item Viewer

Floyd_Davidson · 03-03-2009, 01:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by starlite9

They started flying stateside in June of 1979 and expanded from there, almost six years before they closed the door.

Sigh...

Anchorage to Seattle isn't exactly "competing Outside". It's just an extension of Alaska service. It was when they started flying multiple routes to many locations between Lower-48 cities, in the early 1980's, that they started heading towards the bankrupcy court. MarkAir didn't even exist until the last few months of a multi-year slide by Wien.

starlite9 · 03-03-2009, 01:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson

Sigh...

Anchorage to Seattle isn't exactly "competing Outside". It's just an extension of Alaska service. It was when they started flying multiple routes to many locations between Lower-48 cities, in the early 1980's, that they started heading towards the bankrupcy court. MarkAir didn't even exist until the last few months of a multi-year slide by Wien.

LOL... "Outside" is "Outside" whether you like to admit it or not... Anchorage to Seattle is "Outside", it isn't a technical term, it is a fact.

Flying to Juneau from Anchorage isn't "Almost Outside" either....

There were about a dozen companies (plus or minus a couple) that were already flying to Alaska and Wien was going head to head with them when they started their "Outside Flights".