Merger of Pacific Air Lines & West Coast? What happened to Bonanza?
In the Memorabilia page there is a memo to all employees of Pacific Air Lines dated June 21, 67 stating that Pacific and West Coast were preparing to merge operations. There was no mention of Bonanza. What happened here?
April 10th, 2012 at 6:43 am
From things I’ve read the original merger plans as promoted by Nick Bez from West Coast and Bumble Bee tuna fame only included WC and PC which I thought was odd considering PC had no DC9s. It was only later that BL decided to opt in. That was great as BL was the only one of the three that was in the black at the time.
April 10th, 2012 at 6:52 am
It was my understanding, and told to me in SFO during training that Nick Bez actually owned both PC and WC, but the gov’t made him diverse himself of one, so he sold PC to his best friend, WR Grace for $1.00. How true this is I don’t know, but it makes sense why the original merger was only for the 2 airlines. BL kinda got sucked into it, and poor Ed Converse, hated it afterward, but it was too late. Like I said this is just what I heard, but I tend to believe it.
April 10th, 2012 at 6:58 am
Fascinating.
One bloke who may know is Jack Furrer the very honest and likable Chief Pilot, or his brother Dick (also very likable and chatty), both of whom are still living in SFO. Their emails are not on the Hughes Air West site but Jack attends the Hughes Air West get togethers. Also Captain Harry Spear who is in PSP. His e-mail is hspear@…
Give it a go.
Or if I thought my wife wouldn’t box my ears, I’d contact my old girlfriend, Rene (Dearenee) Bez who is still living in Seattle in the family homestead in Rainier Valley.
April 10th, 2012 at 8:26 am
Obviously Word Press Blog & Chat will not allow posting of Email addresses. Try, i.e., Frank at webmail dot com.
April 16th, 2012 at 11:39 pm
If you go to the Memorabilia page of this site you’ll see an article of Airliners Magazine Jan/Feb 2003. You’ll find some information there with regard to this subject.