Book Review from Airways Magazine December 2004.

Published just as the Capital Airlines veterans gathered for their last annual reunion in the Washington Area, this is a charming view of another age. Pat Powers flew with Capital Airlines for a little less than two years as that company offered Viscount service to its largely northeastern routes.

Capital is one of those companies which even after four decades, has left a warm spot in the hearts of many, and not only former employees. Finally taken over by United in mid-1961 as its finances fell apart (sounds familiar, doesn’t it?), Capital had begun as Pennsylvania Airlines in 1930, later Pennsylvania-Central, adopting the Capital name as a sales phrase in 1946; the company adopted that title two years later. Capital served the northeastern USA, primarily a lot of short-run routes with a few longer stages to the Twin Cities and south to Atlanta and New Orleans (but not the lucrative Florida markets). Most people remember the carrier from its introduction of economy flying in 1948 and the handsome and sturdy Vickers Viscount  turboprop, a type that it introduces into the USA in 1955. But as has happened too often more recently, Capital tries to grow too fast while being shut out of longer routes it needed. Bankruptcy (seemingly the choice these days) was looming when the CAB approved United’s takeover of Capital’s routes and aircraft.

While Rothacker goes briefly over this history, her focus is elsewhere –on the day-to-day service as seen from the passenger side. She reviews the archaic requirements of the late Fifties to becoming a stewardess (they were not yet flight attendants), including the narrow age window (nobody younger than 21 or older than 32) and the ban on marriage (imagine enforcing those today).

Filled with interesting episodes of flying in unpressurized DC-3’s and DC-4’s, as well as the Viscounts, the author provides a good feel for air travel of the era. Balmier fays, far less crowded because fewer than a third of all Americans had ever been on an airplane, when you did not have to be at the airport several hours before a flight, or go through long security checks before boarding. Commercial flying was actually fun for many.

Mainly, however, this is the story of a New York Irish Catholic girl suddenly thrust into a far more varied world than that in which she grew up. There were many shocks along the way, but Rothacker lived--and remembers them with a great sense of humor. Her book is an easy an quick read—an evening really—and fond nostalgia for an airline and way of life long gone.