The story of the birth of New York Air, or at least part of it, is contained in notes given to me by Margo Carlson (then Bell-Madden), Director of Reservations. It was called Project Alpha.

The image below is Page 1 of Margo's notes for a talk she gave, if I'm not mistaken, to a class of new employees. The notes didn't scan well, so below the image are all of them retyped. In the interest of historical accuracy, I made no corrections, but some formatting is altered because of the use of a MS-Word table instead of, probably what Margo used, a typewriter.

Date: unknown. Provided by: Joe Wright

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I have a very faded copy of the Wall Street Journal article that Margo mentioned. So, instead of trying to scan it, here it is re-typed for your enlightenment. I believe it was published on Dec. 1, 1980, but the handwritten notation on it says "New York Times" while the article was clearly printed in the WSJ. So that date is suspect.

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45,000 Busy Signals Cause Frustration At New York Air

Its Reservations System Proves Unable to Take All Calls For Shuttle Flight Seats

By William M. Carley
Staff Reporter for The Wall Street Journal

    NEW YORK - New York Air, which recently launched service between New York and Washington, has encountered so much success that it's leading to problems.

    The new airline, a subsidiary of Texas Air Corp., has carried 10,000 passengers in its first 10 days of operation. Those passengers have filled 50% of the seats offered, a healthy figure for a new airline.

    "The figures look good, but we're still frustrated because we could have done even better," says James O'Donnell, an official at New York Air. Mr. O'Donnell notes that the airline's reservations switchboard has been jammed with calls and has been busy nearly 100% of the time.

    "The telephone company tells us that on Monday, customers got 45,000 busy signals," Mr. O'Donnell says. "Whether the computers are lying and the figure is really that high we don't know, but it seems clear that we aren't meeting the telephone demand."

    New York Air now has 28 reservations phones and hopes to double that number by mid-January. But the airline has been plagued by problems in getting its reservations system set up. The telephone company, New York Air officials say, requires a long lead time to install certain devices in central offices to handle an airline reservations system. In addition, there have been problems of reliability of current equipment while the new gear is being installed. In some cases, phones have been knocked out of service.

More Overtime

    "New York Telephone tells us they're going to work with us as best they can" to solve the problems, said Mr. O'Donnell. He noted that the telephone company had promised to work more overtime and is borrowing the specialized devices needed for central offices from other areas. New York Telephone is a subsidiary of American Telephone & Telegraph Co.

    A spokesman for New York Telephone suggested that New York Air's own estimate of its needs fell short of reality. The spokesman said he couldn't provide more details because the New York Telephone executive dealing with the problem was in meetings with New York Air.

    To cope with the problem of unfilled airline seats even while potential customers can't make reservations, New York Air is introducing a stand-by fare for the month of January. On business days, when the airline has 10 flights a day each way between New York and Washington, New York Air will offer a $29 stand-by fare. That compares to the airline's regular one-way fare of $49 and the Eastern Airlines shuttle fare of $59.

    "Our phones are busy all day long," said New York Air President Neal Meehan. "So, beginning Thursday, just come to our ticket counters at LaGuardia or Washington National airport and we'll sell you the next available seat for just $29."

    The airline said stand-by passengers should check in at the ticket counters no less than 45 minutes before departure; at that time $29 tickets will be sold and stand-by numbers issued.

    While New York Air eventually plans to extend services to several other cities, it's initial move into the New York-Washington market is a direct challenge to the Eastern shuttle.

Heavy Holiday Traffic

    But whether New York Air is cutting into Eastern's business is impossible to tell at this point, if only because holiday traffic is filling every seat available on any airline.

    "New York Air invaded the market at the best possible time of year, just as the holiday traffic is peaking," says Paul Auger, Eastern's vice president for sales. As a result, he adds, "we can't feel any effects from New York Air--on ma y days it's simply impossible for us to satisfy the demand, no matter how many extra sections we run."

    The picture has been complicated by the weather. Because of fog, airports in New York and Washington were closed most of Monday, disrupting normal travel patterns.

    Mr. Auger says heavy holiday traffic will probably continue until about Jan. 7. After that, he adds, "maybe we can get some feeing for the impact" of New York Air.

    If New York Air successfully challenges Eastern's shuttle, which offers a guaranteed seat to passengers, it would be a first. Others, such as American Airlines, have challenged the shuttle in the past, only to fail.

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