Delta, Detroit, and a Little Bit of Hub History!

02/21/25 • 27 min

Delta Air Lines has a rich history in the air travel business, and this year is celebrating its one hundredth year of operations.

And while a lot of Delta’s story is focused on the southern United States where Delta was founded in Macon, Georgia - a state where Delta is headquartered today - there's another large Delta hub in the eastern half of the U.S. at Detroit.

Join me for the story of how an airline from Georgia finds itself with a big hub operation far to the north in Michigan, on the border with Canada, and how that hub is contributing to Delta’s business today.

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Delta Air Lines has a rich history in the air travel business, and this year is celebrating its one hundredth year of operations.

Send us a text

Previous Episode

Warren Wheeler and The First Black-owned U.S. Airline

During the first fifty years of air travel in the United States, the airline industry - as a service provider, and as an employer - is largely focused on White people.

Black Americans are usually locked out of many airline jobs until long after the 1940s, and Black households have little exposure to air travel, both because of the high cost, and the segregated nature of many airport facilities.

In a 1976 magazine article I found while doing background work for this podcast episode, a Black airline pilot is quoted saying: “Whites have long ago realized that time is money. Some of us [and he’s referring to Black Americans] are still wondering if it’s safe to ride on trains.”

Then in the early 1960s, a 19-year old from North Carolina opens a small flying school at the airport in Chapel Hill, close to where he grew up. Warren Wheeler loves to fly, he’s determined to make a living doing it, and he’s Black.

Join me for this look at how Warren grew his flight school into the first Black-owned airline in the U.S., while also becoming a jet captain for a major airline, and the impact his work has had across generations.

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Next Episode

Let’s Have a Look! - An Airliner Window History

Have you ever found yourself looking out of a cabin window on an airliner, and wondered what was keeping you in - and the outside out - during your flight?

If you ask an aerospace engineer what their ideal airliner cabin window size and shape is, they might just tell you that the ideal airliner has no cabin windows. They’re a hassle to design and build, and they add to the maintenance and cleaning work required for an airliner.

But airlines know that a lot of their customers wouldn’t enjoy flying in a tube with no outside view, so windows in the passenger cabin have been a fixture since the earliest days of air travel.

With this Airline Time Machine podcast, let’s explore the role that airliner windows have, the many variations in window design over the years, and how a modern airliner window’s made. And, looking ahead, how might future airliner design change the windows we’ll find in airplanes.

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