Talk:Florida Airlines

Wikified

Would the person who slapped all these banners up kindly be more precise about what wikification was deemed desirable? At least at this point it seems to be reasonably broken up with subheads. Is there any procedure for amending and deleting the banner on the article page? Tkotc (talk) 20:30, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Article ready to move from Stub to Start???

I am new to Wikipedia and stumbled on this stub article (somehow). I have used this article to gain some experience at researching a topic. I have received some good advice from Tkotc and hopefully i have addressed those issues. Obviously it is never going to deserve much past start class. An area i feel would improve the article would be a photo, I cant seem to find a photo with appropriate license. I have addressed User Talk:Tkotc helpful comments as far as i think i can go with research sources available to me. Wikipedia:Requests for feedback/2011 February 16

Any further comments and advice or editorial work would be helpful and welcome. Geez-oz (talk) 10:26, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Also useful info would be the actual fleet details in mid 1970's when it was claimed to have the largest DC3 fleet, but this info. has eluded me so far Geez-oz (talk) 10:36, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

On the "stub" issue, Wikipedia:Stub says (1) anyone can remove the stub tag; and (2) a cleanup tag is seen as an alternative to a stub tag. Since someone has now put a cleanup tag up, I removed the stub tag. I'm sure the people who run around Wikipedia pasting these tags onto articles have a clear idea what they have in mind. Unfortunately the tags do a very poor job of communicating it. What, exactly, needs cleaning up? Yes, there could be more information, but we are talking pre-www history here and a defunct entity. One of the External links has considerably more information. Should it be added to the body of this article? I didn't suggest Geez-oz do this, because I was being conservative about the "reliable source" issue; but frankly the source appears to be reliable, the only problem being the longevity of the information. Anyone care to comment? Tkotc (talk) 07:55, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I upgraded the ratings to Start class, since this is more than a simple stub. (Nice map!) I implemented what cleanup was needed except that the Corporate History section needs to be turned from list into prose, so that's tagged more specifically now. -- Beland (talk) 20:34, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Employee

My name is Jim McMaster. I worked for Florida Airlines from August of 1969 through January of 1981 and have first-hand knowledge of this company. Much of that time, Bill Odell whose article is cited as reference was a co-worker of mine and we both have significant information that can be added. Can someone help me on how to add such info? My email is Jalapama@yahoo.com and I would welcome any advice you can provide me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jalapama (talk • contribs) 03:36, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Expansion ideas

The claim that made me curious enough to come to this article was that it was allegedly killed by deregulation, which is also a potentially POV statement. This claim needs a reliable source and it would be very interesting to get more details.

As for expanding the article generally, any information that can be cited to reliable published sources (see Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources) can be added. Former employees, I would keep Wikipedia:Conflict of interest in mind. A good way to avoid any question of biased editing is to add proposed material to the talk page and let an uninvolved editor add it to the article. Feel free to dump anything of interest here and leave a note on my user talk page and I'll be happy to do so. Certainly photos are usually pretty objective and hard to obtain from the general public; strictly factual material is the easiest to incorporate. -- Beland (talk) 20:40, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Proposed New 'Corporate History' Section

The company was originally a small aircraft charter company based in Tampa, Florida and owned by L. A. Stevens. Stevens had begun this business soon after WWII ended and Drew Field was returned to civilian control, becoming Tampa International Airport. In the early 1950's William Taylor, a local apartment building magnate, purchased the company from Stevens, but kept him on to operate it.

The company was incorporated in Florida on February 8, 1960 as Florida Air Taxi, Inc. with Taylor owning all the shares.

The corporate name was changed to Florida Airlines, Inc. on October 17, 1963 coincident with the sale of all shares to the Hill family. Lee H. Hill, Sr. and Lee H. Hill, Jr. were already established in the Tampa area as owners and publishers of Hill-Donnelly cross reference directories.

In late 1973 the Hill family sold all shares to the late Arthur C. Allyn of Sarasota, Florida. Allyn had previously owned the Chicago White Sox baseball team. He also owned Sarasota Jungle Gardens and was a significant philanthropist in the Sarasota arts community.

Allyn retained ownership until the company filed for bankruptcy in January of 1980. The corporation was ultimately dissolved on December 14, 1982 Jalapama (talk) 18:23, 3 January 2012 (UTC)