"Flies the Blue Skies" by Walter R. Turner Reprinted with
permission from the Tar Heel Junior Historian. Fall 2003. Tar
Heel Junior Historian Association, NC Museum of History  The
final call came over the loudspeaker: “Ladies and gentlemen,
Piedmont Airlines Flight No. 41 is now boarding at Gate 1 for
Pinehurst, Charlotte , Asheville , Tri-Cities, Lexington, and
Cincinnati.” It was 7:00 A.M. on February 20, 1948, at the
Wilmington , North Carolina, airport and Davis, not yet thirty
years old, was starting Piedmont Airlines with 250 employees and
three used DC-3 airplanes. Another route connected Morehead City
(during the summers), New Bern, Goldsboro, Raleigh –Durham ,
Greensboro –High Point , and Winston-Salem  and extended to
Louisville, Kentucky. The third route started that year was
Norfolk, Virginia, to Cincinnati, Ohio. Crew bases—which
included pilots, pursers (male flight attendants), and
maintenance workers—were established in Winston-Salem ,
Wilmington, and Norfolk. Within ten years, Piedmont had e