Almost a Northwest Airlink
Florida was the site of many entrepreneurs’ airline ambitions from the dawn of commercial aviation, and the 1980s was arguably the most exciting and colorful time to witness the industry’s evolution – certainly the most turbulent. With few roads linking the coasts and long driving distances between key centers, and no thought yet of introducing high-speed rail, commuter travel by air across the state was a compelling proposition.
Tampa-based Dolphin Airways (IATA code DV) began operations on December 15, 1981 by acquiring fixed base operator Tampa Air Center and laying down a comprehensive blanket of routes with new-build and relatively inexpensive Embraer Bandeirante unpressurized twin-turboprop 18-seat equipment.
While many third-level operators were trying their hand in Florida at that time, few were trying to cover the entire state, with most either concentrating on linking their hometowns to Miami or flying short hops to the Bahamas or the Keys from Atlantic coastal centers. This would, of course, change in short order.
The January 1982 timetable was a complicated plan and gave a more ambitious marketing stance than its departure schedule was supporting. Many of these routings only saw one or two daily round trips.
The network was simplified somewhat by summer 1982 as low-frequency services were jettisoned in favor of core routes that could support something closer to shuttle-style operations on key corridors. Another factor pushing toward route simplification was unpredictable Florida weather, where updrafts and massive cloud formations could quickly appear, and where the unpressurized Bandeirante could not ascend or descend quickly to avoid meteorological hazard without causing eardrum pain for passengers. This also meant the “Bandit” had to fly at lower altitudes which meant passengers felt more bumps – and they may not have been impressed by the type’s 1 x 2 seating configuration with a cramped bench on the starboard side instead of separate seats. Weather-related flight delays or cancellations in a complex network would only amplify through the day, while an out-and-back system allowed for easier recovery.
The Bandit’s slow climb and descent also created air traffic slotting issues, which also introduced delays and necessitated block-time padding. Faster, pressurized turboprops of similar size like the Metroliner would have allowed for more operations each day but also came with a higher price tag. And like many “commuter” carriers of the era, Dolphin’s ownership did not have deep cash reserves to finance its operations with.
Dolphin was a low-bid winner for Florida state government staff service contracts which helped support services from the capital in Tallahassee (located far from the state’s population and economic centers).
By December 1982, Dolphin was employing 250 people and fielded a fleet of ten EMB-110s. The company reported nearly 100,000 boardings in the year completed. In mid-December, the company announced plans to acquire another five Bandeirantes as well as five Fokker F-28 regional jets to broaden its network, plus the construction of a $4.5 million hangar and headquarters facility and the hiring of 400 more staff – including its first flight attendants needed for jet service. The press releases and local coverage did not detail how this expansion would be paid for, however.
The Tampa Connection
The carrier signed an interline agreement with Northwest making DV the major airline’s preferred commuter connecting partner in Florida on November 1st, 1982, and also moved into Northwest’s ticket counter at TPA.
Dolphin’s February 1983 timetable marked a subtle name change to “Dolphin Airlines” and was much thicker than previous issues – not only did DV add spokes from Tampa out to Key West, Naples, and cross-bay to St. Petersburg, they also started listing connections on Northwest Orient via Tampa and Miami to destinations such as Milwaukee, Boston, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Chicago, and even as far afield as Copenhagen and Stockholm.
Northwest’s city timetable editions in Spring-Summer 1983 (although not its system schedules) likewise listed connections to DV destinations.
Dolphin’s high frequencies on core routes, plus the addition of new spokes, had created a thoughtful intrastate hub at Tampa that took advantage of that airport’s efficient operations and central location – avoiding the congestion and costs of hubbing at Miami as well as the extra time and money needed to fly all the way to the far end of the state and back again. While Miami was the state’s largest population and economic center and biggest source of origin-and-destination traffic, there was still plenty of business to be had connecting the rest of Florida to itself, especially if an airline didn’t saddle itself with excess debt and oversized / older-generation / maintenance-heavy aircraft.
The partnership made strategic sense as NWA was finding Tampa to be a handy focus city for its Florida service. The coast from Naples up to St. Petersburg had become the preferred winter and retirement nesting grounds for citizens of the Upper Midwest (the Minnesota grocery chain Byerly’s even had an outpost in Naples for several years). While Delta and Eastern built up their Atlanta hubs and Orlando & Miami concentrations; and United tried a focus city in Orlando, Tampa offered less intense competition for Northwest – especially as Pan Am had abandoned much of National’s service there after those airlines had merged a few years earlier.
From TPA in Spring and Summer 1983, Northwest had double-daily nonstop departures to Chicago O’Hare (well timed for Tokyo connections), plus daily nonstops to Milwaukee (continuing on to Detroit) and Boston (timed for European connections.) A daily nonstop, plus a daily through-flight via Atlanta, connected with the Minneapolis hub. Chicago services were also timed to connect with that city’s Tokyo nonstop.
Similar to how the other major carriers were approaching Florida services, these mainline departures were fed from short hops from Orlando, West Palm Beach, Miami, and Fort Myers in what we would today call a “scissor” connecting bank, illustrated below (Summer 1983):
Northwest needed four gates in the 12-1 pm and 3-4 pm banks, with two aircraft remaining overnight. This left plenty of physical space as well as excellent timing throughout the day for Dolphin’s operations. And it is easy to see how NWA left itself the flexibility to expand Tampa by adding several evening-arrival flights that would go on to overnight elsewhere in the state, coming back in the morning to perform another scissor bank (likely focusing around the Chicago services).
Dolphin’s utilization of Northwest’s counters and gates was a clever way of leveling out staffing and resources across the day while keeping NWA’s options open for further growth.
A good idea that started falling apart
Before even a full tourist season could get underway, however, the Dolphin operation started to struggle. Those growth and fleet ambitions announced in December 1982 were not finding funding in the next year, as traffic growth was not keeping pace with interest rates – commercial loans at that point had annual finance rates from 13% up to 20%! The headquarters building had not been started, staff hiring was frozen (with about 350 on board in July), and neither the additional turboprops nor jets were coming.
The Naples and St. Petersburg stations had already closed by July 1983, and by August the company had pulled out of Miami. A daily branch from Pensacola up into Alabama was attempted in August but found no traffic to support it.
In August 1983, Dave Keeton, VP-Sales, blamed cutbacks on European travelers avoiding high U.S. prices; and Leonard Blaylock III, Dolphin board chair, said Naples, Melbourne, and Key West service would resume in November 1983 (it would not).
Without sufficient variety of destinations to feed Tampa, Northwest connections disappeared from both the DV-issued timetables as well as NWA city issues.
By fall 1983, the network continued to further retract. While the remaining routes were operated with high frequencies (Pensacola-Tallahassee with seven daily round trips, for instance), commuter competitors such as PBA and Air New Orleans were already encroaching, stealing market share and staff in a marketplace that could not support unlimited expansion. High-frequency services along Interstate highway corridors need either substantial feeder connections or very low fares to keep passengers in seats – Dolphin had forsaken the first case, and could not afford to support the second case.
Without new investors, Dolphin simply ran out of operating cash and ceased operations on January 20, 1984. Chairman Larry Goff remarked their operating income was only “a little better than breakeven” and acknowledged not being able to support their accumulated debt. “It seemed like the prudent thing to do. The payables which we have are of a magnitude where the airline cannot support itself and pay off its debts.” Most of its fleet and remaining employees were picked up by PBA in a $1.25 million deal as that carrier embarked on its own undercapitalized, over-ambitious Florida expansion.
Northwest continued its Tampa scissor operation, with second daily nonstops to Miami, Minneapolis, Orlando, and Fort Lauderdale added by June 1984, plus new daily nonstop service to Detroit. And by December 1985, NWA had 28 daily departures from TPA including nonstops to New York JFK, Cleveland, and Los Angeles. In fact, the LAX operation (operated with a brand-new Boeing 757) was given flight number #1 as the domestic leg of the LAX-Tokyo service!
NWA’s commitment to Tampa would have been well-complemented with a financially stable Dolphin, and we could easily imagine DV being one of the initial Airlink operators right alongside Mesaba and Big Sky.
- See our collection of Dolphin timetable scans here
- Read more about Dolphin at airline historian Dave Henderson’s excellent website, Sunshine Skies
