History
Early efforts
Serial entrepreneur Nick Bez emigrated from Croatia to the U.S. at age 14 on his own, and worked his way across from New York to Seattle to Alaska, where in his 20s, purchased a fishing boat and grew that business into canning, eventually owning the three largest tuna and salmon canneries in Alaska, two gold mines and a large fleet of fishing trawlers. To better get around to all his enterprises, in 1931 Bez organized a small charter carrier called Alaska Southern Airways, which he sold to Pan Am subsidiary Pacific Alaska at a profit in 1934. The aviation bug had struck, and from 1937-1939 Bez served as Vice President of Aircraft Charter Service.
Moving back down to Seattle, Bez submitted an application to undertake feeder airline service in the Pacific Northwest on June 20, 1940. After WWII, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) awarded an operating certificate to West Coast Airlines (WCA) on May 22, 1946. Trial flights began on August 11th, with scheduled interstate service beginning December 5th using Douglas DC-3 equipment, on the coastal route between Portland, OR and Seattle, WA, via Astoria, Chehalis/Centralia, Aberdeen/Hoquiam, and Olympia.
Slow but steady growth commenced, but Bez was looking to expand more dramatically. In 1949 he negotiated a merger with San Francisco-based Southwest Airways – but the CAB turned down the proposal. Other avenues would have to be explored.
Image by Bill Larkins via Wikimedia, CC 2.0 license: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EmpireDC-3n62376_(4407526719).jpg
Empire rises
Meanwhile, Bert Zimmerly founded his air transport company in 1938 in Clarkston, Washington, initially focusing on training civilian pilots, but in June 1940 expanded his operation with a contract from the War Department and a second school location at LaGrande, Oregon. Zimmerly also conducted fire patrols and support, crop dusting, air ambulance service, and passenger charters during wartime.
As military needs wound down, Zimmerly filed with the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) to launch a scheduled airline, jumping into intra-state service within Idaho on June 21, 1944, picking up a set of Boeing 247Ds in July 1945. Zimmerly acquired the assets of a proposed airline that winter and adopted its name, Empire, for his operation in March 1946. On May 22, 1946, the CAB granted a certificate of public convenience and necessity for a temporary period of three years to both Empire and Nick Bez’ West Coast. Empire started scheduled interstate service on September 28, 1946 on a long local-service route looping from Idaho Falls and Pocatello in the East, through Boise, into eastern Oregon and Washington, terminating at Spokane and Coeur d’Alene.
Empire upgraded to Douglas DC-3 equipment in March 1948. Zimmerly died in an airplane crash in late 1949, and his airline struggled in the years afterward as the territory was light on population and industry – and route development that might have pulled in connecting traffic hit a standstill, with only infill routes such as Lewiston-Boise service being added in June 1950. Negotiations with neighboring West Coast Airlines were concluded August 1st, 1952 – a merger suggested to Nick Bez by the CAB, instead of the Southwest deal – and WCA assumed operation of the full network on September 28 of that year.
A unified effort
The combined company was awarded a permanent operating certificate on December 8, 1955, and got right to work integrating the West Coast and Empire systems, thanks to their respective maps lining up so well and both using the DC-3. Spokane, Washington, in particular had strong local traffic flows to Seattle, Boise, and Portland (via intermediate stops) and became a natural mini-hub.
Those DC-3s, however, started coming up short as passenger loads increased. And mountain-region flying and high summer temperatures away from the Pacific coast required an aircraft with more power than what the piston-engined DC-3 could provide. West Coast became the first customer for the turboprop Fairchild F-27, with service inaugurated on September 28, 1958. DC-3s would start to be phased out, but a handful remained through the 1960s to serve small coastal communities.
Route growth to more small and midsize communities was regularly approved by the CAB. WCA’s new route to San Francisco from Portland, via local stops at Salem, Redmond/Bend, Newport, Sacramento, and Oakland, began July 31, 1959. Service to Salt Lake City was achieved on September 1, 1959, from Boise via Logan, Ogden, and Omak, Utah. Routes to Calgary, Alberta, and Great Falls, Montana via Kalispell and Shelby/Cut Bank were also on the map by 1961.
The company started nonstop Seattle – Spokane service on September 27, 1964, with a robust shuttle schedule that strongly competed with Northwest Airlines. An air bridge between these cities made sense as even with freeway connections, the drive would take the better part of a day in each direction.
With continued population and business growth in the Cascades region, WCA determined that jet equipment would be a solid investment, and ordered the Douglas DC-9. Jet service started September 26, 1966; initial schedules called on the main bases of Seattle, Portland, Spokane, and San Francisco, with stops in Eugene, Yakima, and Walla Walla.
Bez still sought a larger system; in June 1963 he pursued Southwest (now Pacific) yet again by purchasing 34% of its stock in a friendly arrangement with their founders. Yet again the CAB blocked the move and Bez had to sell the shares.
However, as the industry found itself in difficult conditions in the late 1960s, and the Local Service carriers along the western U.S. all struggled, regulators finally allowed a combination. WCA, Pacific, and Phoenix-based Bonanza merged on April 17, 1968, with Air West starting on July 1 that year.
Also see our biographies for “Bert” Zimmerly, Sr. and “Nick” Bez
Route Maps
Timetables
Aircraft
The ubiquitous Douglas DC-3 was the workhorse for both the WCA and Empire systems, with West Coast starting with the type from day one. While Empire initially employed second-hand Boeing 247 aircraft, within a year they had also upgraded to the DC-3.
Modern Fairchild F-27 turboprop equipment came on stream in the late 1950s, with WCA being the introductory user. Continued growth was met with orders for the Douglas DC-9 – WCA was the second customer, right after Delta.
In the late 1960s, in an effort to finally retire the DC-3 for use in very small communities, small Piper twin-engine aircraft were acquired but saw limited use.
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