Valley Flying Service was one of many intensely local carriers in New England formed in the rolling aftershocks from the loss of small-town service from Northeast Airlines after its merger with Delta in 1972. Valley specialized in unscheduled air-taxi operations in Maine with light aircraft and did not venture into scheduled service until 1984.
New ownership in 1989 brought a name change to Northeast Express and traditional-for-commuter-operations Swearingen Metroliner equipment. Eventually Precision Airlines would be brought into common ownership and both carriers signed on with Northwest to feed its Boston focus city (and some New York services) under Airlink branding after the traditional dominant mainline carrier there, Eastern, collapsed in 1991. Northeast Express would add DeHavilland Canada Dash-8-100 turboprops and push its network south into the mid-Atlantic states and north to Quebec as well as its usual stations in Maine, while Precision concentrated on its usual New Hampshire stations with a Dornier 228 fleet.
Financial difficulties tied to Alan Caruso’s ownership (having previously run Provincetown-Boston Airlines beyond its abilities and out of business) led to service issues in late 1993-early 1994. Northwest notified Precision and Northeast Express on May 28, 1994 that it would terminate its Airlink contract as of November 1, but on June 21, the pair of carriers declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy and ceased operations, grounding a combined 33 aircraft and about 550 staff. The liquidation process would go on into 1995. Northwest contracted Business Express (a Delta Connection carrier) to codeshare out of Boston, and this marked the end of “red tail” Airlink service in the Northeast U.S.
There were few print timetables issued by Valley and only two known issues from Northeast Express – we’ll post what we find here as there are few online resources available, and we want to honor any carrier who painted its aircraft in Northwest colors.
- December 4, 1989 System Timetable (Northeast Express) – seeking this issue!
- September 18, 1989 System Timetable (Northeast Express)
- October 16, 1988 System Timetable (Valley)
- November 15, 1987 System Timetable (Valley)
- July 5, 1987 System Timetable (Valley) – seeking this issue!
- December 15, 1986 System Timetable (Valley)
- December 16, 1985 System Timetable (Valley) – NEW January 2024
- January 2, 1985 System Timetable (Valley) – seeking this issue!
- February 6, 1984 System Timetable (Valley)
