The regulated era: four carriers on the April 1957 timetable

April 1957

The fullest early snapshot of airline South Bend is a timetable: The Official Airline Guide for April 1957 shows four carriers working the field — North Central Airlines with ten weekday departures, United with nine, Lake Central with six, and Trans World Airlines with three. The four names map the regulated era's structure exactly: United the trunk carrier on the Chicago run; North Central, the Minneapolis local-service carrier, the field's busiest airline; Lake Central, the Indianapolis-based local-service carrier; and TWA feeling its way east from St. Louis. Each line has a documented descent. North Central merged with Southern Airways on 1 July 1979 to form Republic Airlines, and its South Bend service continued under the Republic name toward Detroit and Minneapolis. Lake Central was absorbed by Allegheny Airlines on 1 July 1968; Allegheny renamed itself USAir on 28 October 1979, and the Pittsburgh line that Lake Central's routes fed became US Airways' — the carrier whose later departure and 2018 return under the American name is told below. TWA's South Bend service ended with TWA itself, absorbed into American in 2001. United's Chicago service is the one line on the 1957 page that has never left the field. What this section cannot give the regulated era is its beginning: the first scheduled passenger carrier and date at Bendix Field before this 1957 snapshot were not reached first-hand in the sources used here, and the gap is named rather than backfilled.

Sources:

1. Official Airline Guide, April 1957 — weekday departures at South Bend: North Central 10, United 9, Lake Central 6, TWA 3.
2. The carriers' merger record — North Central and Southern Airways merged 1 July 1979 to form Republic; Lake Central absorbed by Allegheny Airlines 1 July 1968 (Allegheny's first timetable of the merged companies); Allegheny renamed USAir 28 October 1979.