Grounded: Denver Ports of Call
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ค. 2024
- This episode of the Grounded Series looks at Denver Ports of Call (later known as Skyworld), formed as part of the Ports of Call Travel Club the company operated air charter services for it's travel club members. With flights across North and South America the company would later operate worldwide trips using it's Convair 990 and Boeing 707 jets. With their hand forced due to regulations the company went public and fell victim to a hostile takeover, following a failed rebranding the company was dissolved in the mid 1990s. This is the Ports of Call story...
** PRODUCTION NOTES **
First up, the name - It's Ports of Call but most folks know it with the "Denver" prefix which is what I ran with the for the episode title. There is actually not that much information available on the company, there are snippets out there and I believe I uncovered them all however I am more than happy to be corrected on anything.
I have tried to keep things simple regarding the CAB and the Airline Deregulation Act, I feel that this has been covered in greater detail in the Air Florida episode and to go over it again would just extend the episode run time unnecessarily. With regard to Laker Airways and the Laker Skytrain, that too is a bit more complicated and in-fact I cut about 3 minutes of audio out of this episode which went into too much detail for what amounts to a simple side note in this story.
This episode has been fraught with problems, it took twice as long as planned to complete the script and then two days to record and edit the audio. Most delays came from outside events including losing an entire week of production. Hopefully this episode was worth the wait :)
I really appreciate any comments and feedback on this or other episodes as well as suggestions for future episodes. Believe me, if I say that your airline is "on the list", it really is :) Check back to see future episodes or better yet, subscribe to catch them as they land and as always, thanks for watching!
** CONTENTS OF THE VIDEO **
00:00 - Ports of Call Travel Club
02:44 - The Jet Age
04:01 - Prosperous 1970s
06:09 - How Membership Worked
07:58 - PoC Trips
09:29 - Hijacking Incident
10:19 - Enter the 707
11:26 - Noise Regulations
12:29 - Diversification
13:26 - The Mid 80s
14:48 - Hush-Kit Woes
16:23 - Going Public
18:02 - Skyworld
19:58 - Hostile Takeover
21:19 - Grounded
22:55 - The Death Spiral
23:13 - Revived Ports of Call
24:31 - Outro
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#GroundedSeries #DenverPortsofCall #BankruptAirline
My grandfather was the founder and CEO and ran the company with my grandmother. I have lots of memorabilia and would love to share and see their story told more broadly.
Hi Beth, thanks for the message, I've sent you a DM on FB :) I hope you enjoyed this episode :)
My dad was Director of Operations at Ports of Call in the 80's, as well as one of their pilots. My family went on some really great trips with the travel club. My favorite part as a kid was hanging out in the terminal before the trip and talking to all the old folks who had trip badges that really did reach their kneecaps. In your video, you wondered how long the travel badges would get, and I can tell you they got so long members would roll them up and fasten them with rubber bands so they could walk! They were truly a badge of honor and excellent conversation starters. My dad, Bob Resling, went on to buy the Ports of Call name and had just turned his first profit when 9/11 happened. He and his plane were commandeered by the US Government to fly FEMA crews to NYC. After that, aviation insurance became so expensive that my dad had no choice but to shut it all down. He loved Ports of Call, both iterations, and it was truly sad to have to let it go. Thanks for making this video! I learned a lot about the early days and reminisced about the 80's when I was a kid and Larry and Fredda were household names for us. ;)
Wow! Thanks for getting in touch Amy and sharing some inside knowledge & memories :) I honestly can see how the travel badges would be worn as "badges of honour", especially with so many fantastic trips organised by the club. It seemed like a really awesome club to be a part of and something which is just not possible anymore. Thanks also for the insight with your dad's revival of Ports of Call, there wasn't much info out there but I didn't want to leave it out as it would be a nice wrap to the story. It's a real shame that it ended the way it did but at least he gave it a good go :)
Who is your dad? My grandparents were Larry and Fredda.
My wife Jan Poersch was a long time stewardess with P of C even after they quit hauling passengers & turned to some contract flights. They went to Cuba & brought back refugees & took submarine crews to Scotland. I had many flightss & enjoyed them all. Jan passed about 15 years ago, great lady.
My grandmother was a flight attendant for Denver Ports of Call and often talks about how much fun it was.. finding info on this airline is so hard to find and this video was wonderful to stumble upon.
Wow that's cool, I'm glad you enjoyed watching :)
I am Larry and Fredda's granddaughter and would be happy to share information.
Thank You, Phil! Very informative. I worked for Frontier 1967-1969 and saw P-O-C 990s frequently at Stapleton. Great memories!
Thanks for your comment, much appreciated :)
I never knew they were ever that big of an operator. The Deregulation Knockouts book only gave them less than half a page and that made them seem so insignificant. Yet, look at your video. Great job!
Thanks mate, I'm glad to have thrown in a few surprises :)
Ex UAL DENCG I part-timed over at Combs Aviation late at night with a few other UAL guy's, the Ports of Call aircraft were a common sight back in the 70's. I sure miss those days. However, my hearing never got any better, those damn airports. LOL
Thanks for your comment :) Yes I can imagine how loud it would be with all those noisy birds back then, I remember 707s, 727, 737-200s and BAC 1-11s making a racket at Manchester during my youth but they were at least interspersed with something a bit quieter ;)
I have another memory if anyone cares about useless info. One of the 707's was being worked on and all the seats were removed but it still had the forward f/a jump seat and a tapestry-covered bulkhead. I remember it and now recognize it was from American Airlines.....the magenta and orange sunset theme.
I wouldn't call it useless info, it's a nice memory :)
This was fascinating and so interesting. Thanks so much!
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed this episode :)
Fantastic insight about this travel club, really a joy to see whole video and know about their history. Many thanks for sharing!
I've been seeking to buy a 1:400 scale model Boeing 707 of Skyworld, and I decided to search about the airline Skyworld/Ports of Call. I'm so glad i've found your video.
Thank you Leonardo, I'm glad that you enjoyed this video :) I hope that you like your model 707 when you get one :)
My one and only Boeing 707 flight was on an ex-Ports Of Call ship, N709PC, being flown by Guyana Airways in 1994.
Wow that's awesome, I saw that 709 retained the Ports of Call livery and just wore Guyana Airways titles for quite a while :)
@@ExpoAviation You are correct. It was in full Guyana livery by the time I flew it. Even more enjoyable was getting a tour of ex-POC Convair 990A N8357C while stored in El Paso TX in 1992 (Ship 24). At one time this was the one and only 990 Northeast Yellowbird "Flagship Rita" and also the last one to (technically) fly commercially. It still had POC paint and interior with Ciskei Int'l. Airways titles. I took lots of video that day and will one day compile and post a video of it.
Wow now that would be a great video to see :)
@@ExpoAviation Once I lay my hands on the proper transfer equipment, I'll convert the VCR footage to something I can upload. Thanks for your interest.
I never herd of this airline until now
I like to pull a semi-obscure one every now and then ;)
Hey my Grandfather worked for this company! He took me on a tour of their Denver hangar and I remember at least one of the 707s had the Pan Am logo on the flight engineers work station.
Very cool, some of the 707-300s came from Pan Am while some came from AA. I believe there were some differences between them as the two airlines opted for different features such as air-start systems.
My grandmother worked for them as a flight attendant!
Hi there! I am Larry's granddaughter. They let one of their planes be painted as PanAm to use in a movie! It was painted back shortly after. :)
I worked for ports of call as an aircraft mechanic from sept 1985 until they closed down flight ops in July of 1989. I have fond memories of working there and of the people I worked with. Hey guys! what's up! I'm back in den now still working as an amt.
Glad to hear that you're still in the industry :)
A vey interesting and informative video I’ve family in Calgary and have been up the Calgary tower in 1982 I was 17 greetings from Scotland 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
Thanks Ian, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I've never been to Calgary or Canada yet but do plan on visiting once everything opens up again, not sure about going up the Calgary Tower though as I'm not great with heights - aircraft notwithstanding ;)
@@ExpoAviation I love a window seat but I’m not good with heights too
Lovely video as always
Thank you again, I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
Great video as usual!
Thank you :)
Thanks!
wow thank you :)
Another Triumph!
Thank you :)
I’ve been meaning to ask this to you for a while, I remember in your XL Airways video talking about how you had to leave the pilot industry. What’s your opinion on the current pilot shortage in America?
Well when XL ceased operations I was cabin crew and taking flying lessons on the side at my own expense and as a result had to stop. I am a little surprised that the current pilot shortage has been allowed to happen however as this was something a lot of folks were talking about over 10 years ago which would, under normal circumstances give folks plenty of time to get trained up. I do think the war between the airlines and their unions plays a huge part in this too, it makes it harder for guys to transition from a regional carrier to a mainline one which in turn makes it easier to demand a higher wage for the mainline guys. I'm probably not really the guy to ask on this one though given I'm on the other side of the Pond :)
@@ExpoAviation nope, what ive heard over here seems to line up with other analysts. Thanks for responding!
@@ExpoAviationover here in the states we have a pilot and mechanic shortage... I think its because the current generation of young people are lazy and worthless and flight training is difficult. They'd rather go to college for nonsense like photography or political science or marketing.
Any news in the next vid?
The next vid lands on Saturday :) It's a bit different though as it is more of a cross between a Grounded and a trip report and harks back to the Islandsflug and Excel episodes. I am currently working on Grounded episode which sort of ties in with Ports of Call as a fellow Convair operator :)
I have a video suggestion, arrow air and I mainly suggest this because of this video th-cam.com/video/plUs3sG0H-w/w-d-xo.html. Also if you do talk about them you have to talk about flight 1285 In the controversy surrounding it about serious possibility the Canadian Investigators in the crash got the issue of why the flight crashed wrong because of possible US government intervention.
Thanks for the suggestion, Arrow have been on my radar for a while along with their merger buddy "Fine Air". Yes Flight 1285 would be discussed in the video as it was a huge event for the airline, naturally having to research the crash thoroughly and take on board the differing views will take up time when working on a script but it's been added to my list :) - Also, apologies for the delay in replying, YT had flagged your comment due to the link and I hadn't spotted its error until just now.