TAG Airlines D.H.104 Dove 5A N1600H                       (c/n 04365)

                                   

                                     Evocative shot of a couple of Doves of TAG Airlines at Cleveland's Burke Lakeside Airport, circa
                                     mid 1960s.     This image was provided by Kathy Strotman whose father, Ed, flew for the airline at
                                     that time.  (Ed later was one of the start-up pilots for Wright Airlines in 1966).      TAG thrived from
                                    1957 until its demise in 1970 on its sole route from Detroit to Cleveland despite competition from five
                                     trunk and local service carriers which actually charged less than TAG's $14.00 one way fare. The key
                                     to its success lay in the fact that TAG offered the substantially more convenient service from Detroit's
                                     City Airport to Cleveland's Burke Lakeside Airport, a mere five minutes away from downtown.   
                                     Additionally TAG offered frequent service with its 'On the Hour, Every Hour' schedule (shades of
                                     Luddington Airlines of 35 years earlier).             By the mid 1960s TAG was carrying some 35,000
                                     passengers a year.   Unfortunately services ended abruptly when one of its Dove crashed into frozen
                                     Lake Erie in January 1970, killing all nine souls on board.    Bob Garrard's shot below of another of
                                     TAG's  Doves was taken at Burke Lakefront in April 1970 by which time the airline was in the process
                                     of wrapping up. 

                                     D.H. 104 Dove 5A   N630H       (c/n  04378)