Air Texas | 1978

(TOP)
Airline - Air Texas
Aircraft - Douglas DC-8-52 | N776TX
Delivered to Air Texas, 1966
Transferred to Southeast Airlines, 1980
Sold to Aerolíneas Nacionales de Paraguay, 1981
Stored at Asuncion Silvio Pettirossi International Airport, 1999
Livery - Standard 1971
Country - USA

(BOTTOM)
Airline - Air Texas
Aircraft - Douglas DC-10-30 | N665TX
Delivered to Air Texas, 1977
Transferred to Southeast Airlines, 1980
Stored at Victorville, 1998
Sold to Consolidated Express, 2000
Converted to MD-10-30F, 2000
Stored at Victorville, 2020
Livery - Standard 1971
Country - USA

Air Texas started out as a regional intra-state carrier flying propliners in the 1950s. As the Texan internal air travel sector grew, so did the airline, acquiring various DC-8s and DC-9s in the 1960s and 70s and creating a robust route network inside the state, eventually being awarded inter-state routes to New Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado, and Oklahoma. In the 1970s Air Texas also began acquiring DC-10-10s and -30s and operating them on trunk routes between Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio, as well as on its most popular inter-state routes like Dallas to Los Angeles via Phoenix or Houston to Oakland via Albuquerque and Las Vegas. After the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, Air Texas had a lot more freedom to plan its own routes, resulting in a huge explosion of its route map all the way east to Miami and New York and north to Chicago, and internationally down to the Caribbean and South America. In mid-1979, Air Texas began transatlantic flights from Dallas to London Gatwick.

The airline began signing long-term lease contracts for many more DC-9s and DC-10s, and even placed a large order for the upcoming MD-80, but unfortunately this rapid expansion proved fatal. Unable to cover all its lease, fuel, and personnel costs, Air Texas began selling off the aircraft it owned, however all the newly-leased DC-9s and -10s were repossessed by their owners by early 1980 and with only 60 aircraft remaining (out of the 180+ it had expanded to in 1978/79) routes were being cut faster than they had been introduced. Operational reliability suffered, with flights being cancelled unexpectedly and delays being a constant issue on the routes that were still being operated. Consumer confidence in the airline plunged, and by May 1980 there was widespread media speculation that the collapse of one of the southwest's largest airlines was imminent. In June 1980, however, Air Texas was bought in its entirety - with what remained of the fleet and route network - by Southeast Airlines.