1940
- June: The Civilian Pilot Training Program is greatly expanded by the U.S. War Department. Zimmerly opens an additional flying training school in LaGrande, Oregon.
1941
- February 14: NWA common stock is publicly traded for the first time.
- Northwest’s annual passenger revenue exceeds mail revenue for the first time.
1942
- Service to several smaller cities is suspended when the government commandeers half of Northwest’s fleet.
- February: The U.S. government looks to Northwest and its experience in extreme cold and mountainous terrain to set up an aerial highway between the industrial heartland of the Midwest up to Alaska. Frank Judd, an NWA pilot since 1931, is given responsibility for the new Northern Division.
- March 15: Northwest begins regular service along the air bridge to Alaska. Key points linked out of Minneapolis/St. Paul include Edmonton, Alberta; Ft. John and Ft. Nelson, British Columbia; Watson Lake and Dawson, Yukon; and Fairbanks and Anchorage in Alaska.
- May 12: Northwest Flight 1, operated by a DC-3, overruns the runway at Miles City, Montana, hits obstacles on the ground, and crashes while attempting to go around. 3 perish out of the 14 aboard.
- In the first six months of World War II, Northwest flies over one million pounds of cargo through Minneapolis. Two thousand NWA staff are at work on various projects to support the war effort.
- December: The main hangar for the “Mod” (the Modification Center used for altering standard-issue U.S. military aircraft for specific roles or even missions) comes online at St. Paul’s Holman Field. The building is 1/3 of a mile long, and its twin will be ready in January 1943.
1943
- February: The St. Paul Modification Center covers 13.4 million cubic feet and can process up to 26 medium bombers at a single time. About 4,500 workers are on duty.
1944
- Northwest carries out 11 major government wartime assignments, including lifeline to Alaska, bomber modification and a variety of special projects; employment leaps from 881 to 10,439.
- Northwest receives Army-Navy “E” for operation of bomber modification center.
- Southern Airways applies for CAB certification to establish a local service air carrier in eight southeastern states.
- May 15: Wisconsin Central Airlines is incorporated with the Four Wheel Drive Automobile Company as the major shareholder. Francis Higgins, formerly advertising and public relations manager of FWD, is named president. The airline begins a four-year battle to win an operating certificate from the CAB.
- October 15: Albert Zimmerly files paperwork with the CAB to launch scheduled services.
1945
- June 1: New York service is launched from the Twin Cities via Milwaukee and Detroit, making Northwest the fourth transcontinental air carrier.
- June: Bonanza Airlines begins operations in Las Vegas, Nev., with a single-engine Cessna aircraft.
- Northwest adds its first four-engine aircraft, the Douglas DC4.
- October 2: Zimmerly begins scheduled service using Boeing 247Ds, from Pocatello to Burley, Twin Falls, Boise, Lewiston, and Coeur D’Alene.
1946
- Service expands to Newark, N.J.
- West Coast Airlines is founded in Seattle, covering local services in Washington and Oregon.
- August 5: Bonanza’s first scheduled service begins (up to this point the carrier was running semi-regular charter services), between Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada.
- September 1: Northwest begins service on the Seattle – Anchorage, Alaska route.
- September 26: Zimmerly and Empire Airlines merge, taking the Empire name, and become the leading local air carrier in Idaho. Routes also extend to Reno, Nevada, Seattle, Washington, and Missoula, Montana; as well as local points in eastern Oregon and Washington, with a northern terminal at Spokane.
- December 2: Southwest Airways begins scheduled service on several Californian routes, connecting the smaller coastal cities between Los Angeles and San Francisco, northward into the Sacramento Valley, and along the Pacific coast from San Francisco to Medford, Oregon.
- December 19: Wisconsin Central is awarded route authorities but is ordered to sever its connection to FWD Corporation and to invest in airport and airway facilities before it can begin service.
1947
- January 2: “Inside” route to Anchorage is launched from the Twin Cities (with a technical / fuel stop at Edmonton, Alberta).
- April 10: The twin-engine Martin 202 enters service with Northwest.
- April 27: Service begins from the Twin Cities to Aberdeen, South Dakota and Jamestown, North Dakota (continuing on to Bismarck.)
- June 21: Bozeman, Montana receives service on the Billings – Seattle “milk run”.
- July 15: Northwest Orient service begins from the Twin Cities via Anchorage and Shemya, Alaska, to Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai and Manila.
- September 25: First service to Okinawa by Northwest.
- October 3: Wisconsin Central is certified to begin operations, after significant investment in airport facilities and radio navigation across the Northland. Francis Higgins is first President, and Hal Carr is Vice President.
- November 12: Northwest adds Great Falls, Montana to its Twin Cities – Seattle web of flights.
- December: Southwest Airways is the first commercial carrier to utilize Instrument Landing System devices. These are pioneered at the frequently fog-shrouded airport at Arcata, California.
- Service expands to Jamestown, N.D., Aberdeen, S.D., and Bozeman, Mont.
1948
- February: The “Red Tail” is painted on all Northwest aircraft for the first time, creating a trademark that becomes known world-wide and that continues in use for another 60 years.
- February 24: After a four-year fight to win CAB certification, Wisconsin Central Airlines begins scheduled service. The first flight: Minneapolis/St. Paul, to Hibbing/Chisholm, Minn., in a Lockheed 10A Electra. All other “first day” flights are canceled due to bitter cold and widespread freezing rain and snow.
- March 12: Northwest Flight 4422, a charter carrying merchant mariners from Shanghai to New York, operated by a C-54 (military version of the DC4), crashes into mountainous terrain in eastern Alaska shortly after a nighttime fuel stop in Anchorage, killing the 6 crew and 24 passengers. The wreckage is soon buried under snow and is lost inside a glacier. It takes until 1999 for aircraft fragments to be found to confirm the crash site.
- March 15: NWA opens a new route from Detroit to Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C.
- August 29: Northwest Flight 421, a Martin 202 flying from Chicago to the Twin Cities, experiences catastrophic fatigue cracks in its left wing and crashes near Winona, Minnesota. All 33 passengers and 4 crew are killed. Emergency inspections on all 202s are undertaken and several additional aircraft are also found with similar wing spar fatigue cracks. This crash was the first loss of a 202 and was NWA’s most deadly disaster to date.
- December 2: Service to Honolulu begins from Seattle and Portland.
- December 18: Bonanza operates the first scheduled flight from Las Vegas’ Alamo Field – today’s McCarran International Airport.
1949
- March: General Curtis LeMay presents Northwest with the President’s Certificate of Merit for the company’s invaluable service during the war at the Bomber Modification Centers and for opening up supply routes to and through Alaska.
- March 24: Northwest begins the nation’s first transcontinental all-coach flights.
- April: Northwest sues the Martin Aircraft company for selling the airline five defective Martin 202 airframes, including the one involved in the Flight 421 crash.
- May 15: Civil war in China forces suspension of Shanghai service.
- June 10: Southern Airways’ first scheduled flight takes to the skies. Southern Flight 1, with Capt. George Bradford at the controls, offers DC3 service from Atlanta to Memphis, with intermediate stops in Gadsden, Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, Ala., and Columbus, Miss. Southern Airways begins operations with 39 employees and headquarters in Atlanta.
- August 1: Northwest takes delivery of its first Boeing B-377 Stratocruiser. The large and luxurious double-deck aircraft features on-board passenger lounges for relaxation on long trans-Pacific flights.
- October 17: NWA announces it will begin serving alcoholic beverages in-flight to passengers, the first airline to do so on domestic routes.
- December 19: Bonanza begins local scheduled service to Carson City, Hawthorne, and Tonopah, Nevada on the Reno – Las Vegas run.
Timeline Navigation
Click on the links below or use the top navigation to read through the Northwest Family history, decade by decade:
