History of Aus-US Air Services?

[Will H]

Hi everyone,
Does anyone know of some info about the (modern) history of airlines servicing Australia and the US?

Specifically I'm interested in when the pre-Open Skies air service agreement was put in place and when Qantas and United had the Aus-US route to themselves.

Cheers!

Will

[Andi O]

Pan Am operated services to Sydney from Feb 1947 and to Melbourne from Jul 1970 (They also started into Melbourne in 1958 but I am not sure how long this lasted). All Pacific services were sold to United Airlines which took effect in Feb 1986.

American Airlines began services to Sydney in August 1970 through to March 1974. They also extended to Melbourne sometime during this period, but I am unsure of the dates.
They restarted services in Feb 1990 with 4 weekly DC-10 flights to Sydney. This continued until March 1992.

Continental Airlines Started ops to Australia specifically Sydney in May 1979. They added Melbourne in Dec 1981, Brisbane in October 1988 and Cairns in October 1989. Cairns services stopped in October 1992 and complete pullout of Australia's other ports was October 1993.
As Conintnental Micronesia, they started up again from Guam to Sydney in April 1995 which run until March 1996. Since Dec 1998 they have operated a Cairns-Guam service with B737's.

Hawaiian Airlines began weekly services to Sydney with DC-8s and/or L-1011s In January 1988. After a short pull out period between Sep 1990-January 1991, they finally sold their rights to the Aus routes to Northwest Airlines and stopped in April 1991. They restarted services with B767's in May 2004.

Northwest Airlines took over Hawaiian's rights in Jul 1991 and had services to Sydney from the US both over the South Pacific and via Osaka in Japan. After a very public spat about the restrictions on the Japan route rights, they pulled out in August 1994.

United Airlines took over Pan Am's Aus routes in Feb 1986. Since then they have operated services to Sydney and Melbourne with short stint through Brisbane between Aug 1991 and January 1994.

BOAC also operated round the world flights Waaayyyy back across the Pacific to Australia and Air NZ also operated nonstop Sydney-LAX flights in the 1980's/1990's. Obviously many other South Pacific carriers have had through services via their home ports over the years as well.

[Rhys Xanthis]

Continental Micronesia also operated services to Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and also Townsville (Latter unconfirmed, though likely).

See here: http://airchive.com/html/timetable-a...4/6569/preview

[Andi O]

Continental Micronesia never operated to Townsville or Melbourne.
Unitl the end of Continental's services in 1993, the mainline Continental ran services on behalf of "Micronesia" from Guam to Brisbane and Sydney. These services started in 1989.

They then started Guam-Sydney services in their own right in 1995.