Vacationers looking for a fast escape from harsh winter weather, celebrated when Delta became the first airline with non-stop Chicago-Miami service on November 1, 1946. For $59 one-way, you could board a big, four-engined Douglas DC-4 aircraft with “44 roomy seats” and fly an average speed of 218 miles per hour. Flight time to the “Sunshine State” was a speedy 6 hours–slashing 2 hours from previous best schedules. 
Delta employees also rejoiced when the Chicago-Miami route award was announced in 1945. We were now a major airline, no longer offering just regional service, but flying to the second largest city in the U.S., over a route with great potential for vacation travel. For the first time we went head-to-head with Eastern Airlines instead of feeding traffic to their flights–the start of a long rivalry. As Rodger Meier, a Delta reservations supervisor in New Orleans, said at the time: “The Airline of the South now becomes The Airline of the Future.”
Marie Force
Archives Manager
March 1st, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Eastern was doing the same from the Northeast as well as from Chicago when Delta entered the party. Eastern’s marketing slogan / motto at the time was… “from frost to flowers in just eight hours…”
March 1st, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Why not continue the trend and bring people down here to the Caribbean? There are so many amazing experiences to be had from vacations on private yachts to REAL golf cruises!
The best kept secret in the travel industry is that you can actually charter a private yacht with your own captain and personal chef for the same price as a good hotel!!!
We`are all looking for new things to do and most people are now looking for new and amazing experiences instead of the usual hotel vacation.
March 4th, 2010 at 9:51 am
Thanks for the Eastern info, Daryl-ATL! Eastern definitely had a more poetic slogan for their Miami-Chicago service than our “Trunkline to Sunshine” one.