I am hoping someone here can answer a question for me.

Everything I have read about Ozark Air Lines indicates that the airline ceased operations in October 1986.

In fact, one book I am referring to as I write this is "Airlines Remembered" by B.I. Hengi, states:

"The last flight under the Ozark name was on October 27, 1986."

That is the date I have always heard.

However, today, I came across an Ozark timetable dated April 5, 1987.

According to the very informative airtimes.com site, this was the final Ozark timetable issued. (There is no mention of TWA in the timetable at all - no connecting flights, etc.)

So my question is.... Was Ozark still operating as a separate operation after the October 27, 1986 date?

This timetable has me intrigued.

Thanks for any help.

When was the timetable printed?

TVNWZ wrote:

When was the timetable printed?

There is actually no publication date or copyright date inside. The only date anywhere is the April 5, 1987 on the cover.

A few observations, though.... This is certainly not a "normal" Ozark timetable.

Ozark's timetables from the late 70s until the final pre-merger August 1986 one always had colorful images on the cover. This one is just plain green.

It is also much thinner than previous Ozark timetables. It has a total of 20 pages compared to the August 1986 timetable that had more than 70 pages.

There is no route map (which was present in every Ozark timetable before it).

The entire Ozark Midwest commuter operation that was operated by Air Midwest is gone.

Plus, some large cities that had been served by Ozark before the merger had been discontinued: Denver, Las Vegas, New York, Philadelphia and San Diego were all gone.

Other cities had been drastically reduced: Washington, DC and Indianapolis were served but just a single flight to Saint Louis (both had four flights to Saint Louis previously).

And.... of all cities.... there was new service to Toledo.

A final observation... the telephone number for freight was 1-800-TW-CARGO.... that is the only mention of TWA in the entire timetable.

Is just seems like, despite all that has been written about October 1986 being the final Ozark flight, there were at least, perhaps, plans to operate Ozark separately for a while? Maybe this timetable WAS printed with that intention..... but than those plans were abandoned?

An interesting discussion here:

https://worldairlinenews.com/2012/06/24/the-timetable-chronicles-ozark-air-lines-part-2/

(search on The final “Ozark” timetables )

Fascinating...the author says the explanation he was given is that the OZ DC9s operated on the OZ certificate for 3 months after the merger closed. So I guess I'd abbreviated timetable is operations that were conducted on the OZ certificate?

MO11 wrote:

An interesting discussion here:

https://worldairlinenews.com/2012/06/24/the-timetable-chronicles-ozark-air-lines-part-2/

(search on The final “Ozark” timetables )

WOW! That was EXTREMELY interesting! THANK YOU!

For those of you who do not wish to visit the link, this is the information provided by David Keller:

"The final “Ozark” timetables were actually issued by TWA following the merger. At least 3 different Ozark timetables were printed, and I am told that it was due to TWA using the Ozark operating certificate for the DC-9’s until it could be transferred. (TWA already had MD-80’s, so there was no problem with the larger type.)

Apparently, TWA felt that they needed an “Ozark” timetable if they were operating certain flights as such, and distributed a small number of copies to each station with instructions to hand them out only if asked.

Eventually, the certificate was transferred, and Ozark Air Lines disappeared into TWA.")

If you would like to see the timetable:

https://departedflights2.com/ozark-air- ... timetable/

Kind of reminds me of when ex TWA planes were in AA colors but had "operated by TWA, LLC" stickers on the door. Timetables (and I assume GDS systems) differentiated flight segments by the operator cert.

The thing that's most surprising to me is that the timetable includes connecting flights.

If the timetable was only published for legal reasons, I would have thought it would just be nonstops, to save paper and reduce printing expenses.

WA707atMSP wrote:

The thing that's most surprising to me is that the timetable includes connecting flights.

If the timetable was only published for legal reasons, I would have thought it would just be nonstops, to save paper and reduce printing expenses.

WA707atMSP.... I agree! The entire timetable was puzzling! I would have thought for sure that there would be connections to TWA shown... but there were none.

But it all makes sense.... why the long-haul OZ destinations.... LAS, SAN, DEN, etc... operated with OZ's MD-80s were not shown. This timetable, apparently, were just for older generation DC-9 flights.

I really do find it interesting!

departedflights wrote:

Apparently, TWA felt that they needed an “Ozark” timetable if they were operating certain flights as such, and distributed a small number of copies to each station with instructions to hand them out only if asked.

Eventually, the certificate was transferred, and Ozark Air Lines disappeared into TWA.")

I had to consider this some more: Ozark had no operating authorities that needed to be transferred to TWA, so as of October 26, 1986, "OZ" would disappear and all the flights would be "TW". Ozark never surrendered its CAB certificate; it was canceled in August 1987. But the merger was approved in September 1986, and the acquiistion was completed at the end of October. There would have not been enough time to transfer the Ozark operations onto TWA's FAA certificate, so this must be what was meant.

In that timetable, all of the flight numbers were in the 500/600 block. I assume TW didn't have any during the same period.

I've been acquainted with the author (Keller) of the timetable piece for several years. His knowledge of airline timetables is encyclopedic. And, just so happens he resides in Missouri. I'm certain he had personal contacts that could verify the background on this particular timetable issue.

I'll just add that I also have the same issue timetable. What caused me to question it's lineage was the format. Unfortunately, I can't reference since it isn't at hand....there was a font change or stylistic change (vs. 'true' OZ produced timetables) that bought it closer to the format TW was using at the time that caught my attention. At that time, I just felt that changes I saw were quite purposeful. I thought it may have been the cert issue considering TW had long retired its first-gen DC9s by the time of the OZ merger.

WA707atMSP wrote:

The thing that's most surprising to me is that the timetable includes connecting flights.

If the timetable was only published for legal reasons, I would have thought it would just be nonstops, to save paper and reduce printing expenses.

Back then they had a lot of DC-9 milk runs still going. from stl with three stops & a return routing.

Love to see cites like Waterloo and Champaign still getting DC-9s. Those were great days for aviation enthusiast.

jetskipper wrote:

Love to see cites like Waterloo and Champaign still getting DC-9s. Those were great days for aviation enthusiast.

I lived in Urbana from July 1971 until June 1974, so my mother and I were frequently on those OZ DC-9s traveling to and from our native NYC (she was in graduate school at the University of Illinois). We returned for a visit in June 1987, flew TW CLE-STL-CMI. Both were ex-OZ DC-9s (the STL-CMI DC-9 still had Ozark soaps in the lavatory!) At the time, I thought the CLE-STL segment might have been a legacy TW DC-9, I did not know at that time that TW had already gotten rid of their DC-9s. And back then I didn't know about registration numbers, else I might have seen the N###Z.

It's a shame, as nowadays CMI only sees RJs, meanwhile, the Champaign/Urbana metropolitian area is twice as big as it was in the 70s. Just their luck to be a short hop from a major hub (ORD). That 1987 trip was the last time I flew in/out of CMI. On subsequent visits to C/U I flew into Chicago (1995 to ORD from LAX (2 visits, first on UA, other on AA)); 2006 to MDW on WN from FLL. I'd rather fly 125 miles out of the way and drive down than fly on a Jungle Jet (besides the drive on I-57 from Chicago to C/U is one of the easiest 2-hour drives around. Much better than LA-San Diego, which I did a few times when I lived out there.

MO11 wrote:

departedflights wrote:

Apparently, TWA felt that they needed an “Ozark” timetable if they were operating certain flights as such, and distributed a small number of copies to each station with instructions to hand them out only if asked.

Eventually, the certificate was transferred, and Ozark Air Lines disappeared into TWA.")

I had to consider this some more: Ozark had no operating authorities that needed to be transferred to TWA, so as of October 26, 1986, "OZ" would disappear and all the flights would be "TW". Ozark never surrendered its CAB certificate; it was canceled in August 1987. But the merger was approved in September 1986, and the acquiistion was completed at the end of October. There would have not been enough time to transfer the Ozark operations onto TWA's FAA certificate, so this must be what was meant.

In that timetable, all of the flight numbers were in the 500/600 block. I assume TW didn't have any during the same period.

Why did Ozark refuse to surrender it’s CAB certificate to TWA?

For starters TWA retired their original DC-9-10 Series Fleet by 1979. Many went to the original Midway Airlines.

Prior to the official merger date in October 1986, TWA transferred Ozark's 4 MD-80's over to TWA. OZ MD-80's were registered as follows; N950U, N951U, N952U, N953U. Icahn cancelled/delayed the remaining Ozark MD-80 orders (Options) which still would eventually end up in TWA's MD-80 Fleet. Those registration numbers were; N954U, N955U, N956U, N957U, N958U & N959U

Ozark owned a majority, if not all of their DC-9 & MD-80 aircraft. Interesting note, Icahn purchased Ozark for approximately $250 Million (1986 Dollars) and then turned around and sold the Ozark Aircraft to leasing companies and leased them back.

TWA did change Ozark's Route Structure before/after the merger date and added cities Ozark never served and removed cities Ozark did serve. Ozark was operated under their Operating Certificate until everything could be transferred to the TWA Operating Certificate. Some aircraft had hybrid liveries and some still had Ozark Livery

Ozark STL (and other stations too) Terminals/Gates went from having Ozark branding one night and then overnight changed to TWA branding

Icahn also sold the Ozark Air Lines branding a few years after merger.

Disclaimer: my father flew for Ozark

Interesting to see the DFW-TUL spur in the older timetables. I remember being IRROPed to OZ once when my mother and I were flying AA to ELP. They shared a ticket counter with DL and Scheduled Skyways for quite some time. It was likely a good idea, however, for TW itself to buy them out given their expansion in STL. Service to the smaller cities in MO is now pretty bare-bones as is service to most small communities. But hey, WN has cheap fares to a number of large cities.