Empire Airlines (1974–1986)

Empire Airlines was a small jet carrier serving mainly New York and adjacent states with the stated aim to be “chief airline for the Empire State”. Empire was a small but notable deregulation success, pulling itself up by its bookstraps and achieving industry recognition. Empire stayed break-even or better, despite aggressive competition by much larger and/or better capitalized airlines, the turbulence of the early deregulation era and many years of substantial expansion. The airline achieved annual revenues of about $90mm (over $250mm in 2024 dollars) before accepting a purchase offer from Piedmont Airlines in October 1985. The transaction closed in early 1986 and after a brief period, Empire merged into Piedmont. Piedmont itself merged into USAir in 1989 which, many years later, bought American Airlines in 2015.

Founded by Paul Quackenbush, Empire Airlines began with a base at Oneida County Airport serving the Utica-Rome metropolitan area. Empire leveraged the withdrawal of legacy airlines from Upstate New York and the collapse of other new-entrant competitors. It tapped capital markets frequently to finance expansion. It innovated: Empire’s codeshare with Pan Am at New York Kennedy Airport was cited by former American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall as the first such international codeshare. This not only brought incremental traffic to Empire, but helped set it apart from other small carriers at a time when the Pan Am name still meant something. Empire expanded throughout the early 1980s to destinations throughout New York state, most adjacent states, including Maryland and the national capital in Washington D.C., and Ottawa and Montreal in Canada with a final fleet of 15 Fokker F28 jets.