Air Florida
American airline
Air Florida was an American low-cost carrier that operated under its own brand from 1972 to 1984. During the period from 1972 to 1978 Air Florida was an intrastate airline. Until a high-profile 1982 aircraft crash in Washington DC, Air Florida was considered an early success story of U.S. airline deregulation, having expanded rapidly from its original Florida network, including internationally to Europe and Latin America. After the crash, the airline struggled for over two and a half years before finally succumbing to bankruptcy in 1984.
After being grounded for three months in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Air Florida flew again for 10 months in 1984 and 1985 under contract to Midway Airlines using the brand "Midway Express", with Midway selling the tickets and doing the marketing. In 1985 it was sold to Midway.
History
Intrastate origin
Air Florida was based at Miami International Airport. Air Florida was initially organized as an intrastate airline by a group including Miami native Eli Timoner as chairman, Bill Spohrer as president, Jim Woodman as VP, Robert Bussey as Secretary and Reed Cleary as chief pilot. The inspiration was Pacific Southwest Airlines, the long-established California intrastate airline. Spohrer came from Convair 990 operator APSA, which may account for Air Florida's initial focus on a 149-seat Convair 990 as an aircraft, to be leased from Modern Air Transport.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Air Florida” is american airline. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Florida, American and airline, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “american airline” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2828197. VIAF identifies the subject as 134850221. The Library of Congress control number is n78094719. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972, 1984, 1978 and 1982.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Air Florida” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.