North Central Airlines, Inc. - Stock Certificate

Specimen Stock. Printed by Columbian Bank Note Co.

North Central Airlines was a regional airline in the midwestern United States. Founded as Wisconsin Central Airlines in 1944 in Clintonville, Wisconsin, the company moved to Madison in 1947. This is also when the "Herman the duck" logo was born on Wisconsin Central's first Lockheed Electra 10A, NC14262, in 1948. North Central's headquarters were moved to Minneapolis–St. Paul in 1952.

Following a merger with Southern Airways in 1979, North Central became Republic Airlines, which in turn was merged into Northwest Airlines in 1986. Northwest Airlines was then merged into Delta Air Lines in 2010.

In 1939 the Four Wheel Drive Auto Company (FWD), a major manufacturer of four-wheel transmissions and heavy-duty trucks based in Clintonville, Wisconsin, opened a flight department and traded a company truck for a Waco biplane for their company's use. In 1944 company executives decided to start an airline named Wisconsin Central Airlines, and service started between six Wisconsin cities in 1946. This led the company to buy two Cessna UC-78 Bobcats, and, soon after, three Lockheed Electra 10As. Certificated flights started with Electras to 19 airports on 25 February 1948; more revenue allowed three more Electra 10As, then six Douglas DC-3s.

In 1952 the airline moved their headquarters from Wisconsin to Minneapolis, Minnesota; that December their name became North Central Airlines. Soon the airline ran into financial trouble when President Francis Higgins left, making Hal Carr the president. Carr quickly got the company out of debt and made it more reliable. Over time the company expanded their fleet to 32 DC-3s.

In October 1952, Wisconsin Central had scheduled flights to 28 airports, all of them west of Lake Michigan, from Chicago to Fargo and Grand Forks. It added Detroit in 1953, Omaha and the Dakotas in 1959, Denver in 1969 and nonstop flights from Milwaukee to New York LaGuardia in 1970. It added five Convair 340s from Continental Airlines to its fleet of DC-3s, the first ones entering service in 1959. In 1960, North Central hit the one million passenger mark; in May 1968, it flew to a total of 64 airports, including two in Canada.

Like other Local Service airlines North Central was subsidized; in 1962 its "revenue" of $27.2 million included $8.5 million "Pub. serv. rev."

The airline even worked with the U.S. government to aid troubled airlines in South America. The first of five Douglas DC-9-31s entered service in September 1967 and the Convair 340s and Convair 440s were all converted to Convair 580s; the airline acquired more DC-9s and had 29 Convair 580s. The last DC-3 flight was early 1969; NC was the last local service carrier to use it.

In 1969 North Central Airlines moved their headquarters to the south side of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport; in 2009 the building was the Building C Maintenance and Administrative Facility of Northwest Airlines. It is now used by Delta Air Lines after their 2008 merger with Northwest.

The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) classified North Central as a "local service carrier," flying to cities in one region and feeding passengers to larger "trunk airlines" that flew nationwide. North Central eventually was allowed a few routes outside the Midwest: to Washington, D.C.-National, New York-LaGuardia, Boston, Denver, and Tucson. After deregulation of the airline industry North Central expanded and got McDonnell Douglas DC-9-50s, its largest aircraft.

North Central purchased Atlanta-based Southern Airways and the two airlines formed Republic Airlines in July 1979, the first merger following airline deregulation. Republic soon targeted San Francisco-based Hughes Airwest for acquisition, and the deal was finalized in October 1980 for $38.5 million. Saddled with debt from two acquisitions and new aircraft, the airline struggled in the early 1980s, and even introduced a human mascot version of Herman the Duck.

Republic kept North Central's hubs at Detroit and Minneapolis, and Southern's hub at Memphis. Within a few years they closed the former Hughes Airwest hub at Phoenix and also largely dismantled the Hughes Airwest route network in the western U.S.; they also reduced North Central's sizeable station at Chicago-O'Hare. Southern's sizeable station was also reduced at Hartsfield at Atlanta. Republic also quickly downsized North Central's operations to and among smaller airports in the upper Midwest, concentrating their fleet at the Detroit and Minneapolis hubs.

In 1986, Republic merged with Northwest Orient Airlines, which was also headquartered at Minneapolis and had a large operation at Detroit, which ended the legacy of Wisconsin Central and North Central. Following the merger, the new airline became Northwest Airlines (dropping the "Orient"), which merged into Delta Air Lines in 2008. Once the merger was finalized in early 2010, the Northwest Airlines brand fully retired with the Delta Air Lines name surviving as the successor to North Central Airlines.

When North Central Airlines started operations, the company's ICAO code was "NOR"; this was later changed to "NCA". When ICAO went from 3 to 2 characters, North Central became "NC", the same as its IATA code.

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