Piper’s PA-31 twin-engine was that manufacturer’s step up in capacity for the mid 1960s and a competitor to the Beechcraft Queen Air as well as the Cessna 402. Certified in February 1966, the cabin held 5-8 seats with an “almost standing height” headroom, accessed from the back with a split airstair door. The Pilot had a hatching door for their own access. Later developments in the 1970s would add turbine engines and a small stretch to hold ten passengers.
While an excellent corporate aircraft, many found their way into air taxi / charter services and smaller scheduled operators. Subsidies for air mail and passenger transportation to smaller communities, plus overall lower fuel, labor, and insurance costs in the 1960s-70s, allowed third-level operators to proliferate and serve as the genesis for “commuter” style operations.
West Coast Airlines (WCA) was still using aging Douglas DC-3 aircraft to serve its smallest cities; the DC-3’s capacity of two dozen passengers and associated operating and maintenance cost was much too large for stations that only generated single-digit customer counts. WCA experimented from August 1966 with air taxi operator Eugene Aviation to sublet a route from Eugene to Roseburg, Oregon using a smaller Piper Aztec. Finding the approach to be a better balance of capacity with demand, West Coast acquired four new PA-31 Navajos in April 1968 to run services into small Oregon coastal points to and from Portland, as well as the Salt Lake City – Sun Valley / Burley-Rupert, Idaho – Boise service, and the very remote Portland – Baker – Ontario/Payette – Boise connection. These aircraft were branded “MiniLiners.”
This service briefly continued after the Air West merger, with the last noted instance of Piper equipment appearing in the February 1, 1970 timetable. Fairchild F-27 40-seat turboprops were used to serve these small towns, sometimes with only one daily departure, until the company was given authorization to drop those destinations in 1973.
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