jimntx said:
How's this for a legacy identifier? (I won't say definition.)
The legacy carriers are those, such as AA, DL, and U--who continue to carry the "baggage" of the regulation days. By baggage I mean the service to 2nd and 3rd tier stations (whether by mainline or regional division) that came with the territory during regulation days. "You can have the NY-LAX slot, IF you will also provide service on the commercially important ORD to Ashtabula corridor." It was of course pure coincidence that the route examiner was from Ashtabula, and his mother had been complaining about having to catch the bus to Cleveland or Pittsburgh in order to get her flight to Florida. Or the route examiner was getting pressure from the Congressman who got the funds appropriated to build the Ashtabula International Airport and wanted something bigger than Piper Cubs flying in there.
I think this sort of quid pro quo in the day was one of the primary reasons that the hub and spoke system emerged. Now, the rise of SW does not belie that argument. Granted they are a point-to-point carrier, but just like the other LCCs, they cherry-pick the cities they serve and were never required to provide service to marginal markets in return for a desirable route authority.
Just a thought.
I think you gave it a good shot, but not quite.
Your "identifier" would really only apply to US Airways, as they are the only so-called "legacy" carrier that is directly decended from one (or more) of the original postwar Local Service carriers.
By the final decade of regulation (1968-78), the then-Trunk carriers had sucessfully shed nearly all of their "2nd and 3rd tier" stations (I do like your terms!) to the Local Service carriers. While there were still exceptions (United to Elko and Ely, for example), for the most part the Local Service airlines had grown throughout the 50s and 60s on these Trunk castoffs.
While many of the "legacies" do indeed have Local Service airlines in their bloodlines (all of those NW DC-9s that were originally delivered to Bonanza, West Coast [and subsequently to Hughes Airwest], North Central, and Southern, for example), US is the only surviving legacy with no pre-deregulation Trunk carrier roots. It's roots are all Local Service, with the main Allegheny bloodline joined by that of Lake Central, Mohawk, and Piedmont.
Just for clarification, in 1978 the Trunk carriers were:
American
Braniff
Continental
Delta
Eastern
National
Northwest
TWA
United
Western
(Pan Am had no domestic routes at that time)
At that time the Local Service carriers consisted of:
Allegheny
Frontier
Hughes Airwest
North Central
Ozark
Piedmont
Southern
Texas International
...and a latecomer, the short-lived Air New England, much smaller than the others.
the Alaskan (Alaska, Wien, Reeve, and the smaller 'bush' operators) and Hawaiian (Aloha, Hawaiian) operators were considered a separate category.