Former AirCal employees get together at JWA to reminisce

When former AirCal employees talk about their time working for the Orange County airline, one word always comes up — family.

Pilots, flight attendants, and baggage handlers all agree that working for the 1960s- and 1970s-era airline was like working with family. That’s why hundreds of local AirCal employees gather every year to reminisce, catch up and celebrate the now-defunct airline.

“We were such a close family working together at a small airline,” said Scott Bergey, a former AirCal pilot who now lives in Corona del Mar. “We had a close-knit group, so this is kind of like a class reunion.”

For this year’s 29th reunion — marking 29 years since the end of the airline and 49 years since it began — Bergey set up something special. Former employees were invited onto John Wayne Airport’s tarmac to get a close-up look at one of American Airline’s “heritage” planes, painted in the original AirCal colors with the AirCal logo on the tail.

As the plane landed, dozens of former employees screamed and waved their arms in the air, then posed for pictures with the plane as it rolled behind them.

AirCal began operations in 1967, becoming one of the first commercial airlines to fly out of John Wayne Airport, then called Orange County Airport. The airport formerly had been a training base for the Army, with just one runway and a small terminal.

Once AirCal — originally known as Air California — moved in, other commercial airlines followed, including Pacific Southwest Airlines and America West.

“AirCal basically broke the ice,” Bergey said. “They said, ‘Hey, there’s a market here for people who don’t want to go all the way to Los Angeles to fly.”

The airline’s first destinations were exclusively in state — San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, San Diego and Palm Springs — but after the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, which eliminated government control over commercial routes, AirCal started flying outside California, to cities such as Chicago, Phoenix, Las Vegas Portland and Seattle.

But AirCal only survived 20 years, and in 1987, it was acquired by American Airlines.

Alan Blaver, a former chief pilot, said it was the employees’ hard work that set AirCal apart from other airlines at the time.

“One time we had trouble with the airplane in Lake Tahoe during the winter,” he recalled. “But there was the mechanic out there, freezing to death to fix it so we could fly out. PSA, one of our competitors, had the same problem, but they didn’t have a flight engineer like we did, so they had to stay there for two days. That’s just the kind of people we had — do anything to get it done. You don’t see work ethic like that anymore.”

Blaver, who joined AirCal in 1973 and retired with American Airlines in 2001, said he dreamed of becoming a pilot when he was a child, and once he reached his goal, the excitement never wore off.

“I used to get goose bumps every day I went to work,” he said.

Dino Donati, who started working for AirCal straight out of high school in 1973, also remembered the hard work of fellow employees — and how it built camaraderie.

“We could turn the airplanes in 15 minutes, which was extraordinary,” he said. “The plane would come in, we would off-load it, get the baggage out, clean it, reload the baggage and get the customers on board in 15 minutes. That was our success because the more flights you could get out of an airplane in a day, the more profits you made.”

“Sometimes the same plane would come in two or three times a day, and the flight crews would be the same,” Donati said. “So you’d talk to the crews, and you’d find out that they bought a new house or new car, that they’re getting a divorce, or they’re having surgery. Those were the bonds.”

Donati, who started working on the ramps unloading baggage and cleaning airplanes, but later worked his way up to customer service, ticketing and management, said that when he comes to AirCal reunions, he remembers everyone from his days on the job — “every single one of them.”

Debi Gardner joined AirCal in 1973 as a 21-year-old flight attendant and said it was the best experience for young women who wanted to travel.

“People back then, they thought becoming a flight attendant was like you’d been crowned Miss America,” she said. “It was so much fun.”

But Gardner said the industry has changed dramatically in the past 43 years — and will continue to change in the future. “We may not even have flight attendants,” she said. “We might have robots or vending machines if you want something — you’ll have to get out of your seat and get it yourself.”

Howard Ogden, a former flight operator and flight engineer, agreed. “The whole industry’s changed,” he said. “The service isn’t what it was when we were kids. It’s become nonpersonal — it’s get on the bus, sit down, fasten your seat belt, shut up.”

It’s not just customer service. After American Airlines acquired AirCal in 1987, it continued to run the local routes for some time but eventually downsized, so that the majority of its flights out of John Wayne Airport are to its major hubs in Chicago and Dallas. “At one time we ran flights hourly out of Los Angeles and San Francisco,” said Donati. “SNA had five or six trips a day — that’s significant.”

But perhaps the biggest change, Donati said, has been the cost of flights.

“In the early days, when I worked in San Francisco, you could fly to South Lake Tahoe for $16,” he said. “Today you can’t even Uber for that amount.”