Transtate Airlines Pilot Hat Badge

New York, NY 1963

Anonymous collector

Transtate Airlines was a subsidiary of Intercontinental U.S. Airlines. They were a short lived passenger charter operation. The airline had applied to operate a no reservation walk-on shuttle service between Buffalo and New York Service. Their only aircraft was a L-1049 Constellation. This aircraft had an interesting history. It was originally delivered to Cubana then to sold to Seaboard & Western in 1956, then to BOAC followed by Eastern then to Aerline Eireann (Irish Airlines) and then sub-leased to Intercontinantal US Inc. who in 1963 painted it in Transtate Airlines color scheme at Idlewild Airport for use as an intrastate scheduled service which was denied. The aircraft was stored at Idlewild until it was returned to Seaboard in January 1964. The final flight was with Capital Airlines and then turned into a restaurant in Penndel, PA. After several ownership changes, it was donated ot the Air Mobility Command Museum in 1997 at Dover AFB and it displayed as a USAF painted C-121C serial no. 40315.