Time for another history post, this one focusing on the Route of the Northliners in North Central, leading to the merger with Southern Airways to form Republic Airlines, then to the acquisition by Northwest up to Delta’s acquisition.
North Central began service to Sioux Falls around mid-1957 as part of a massive connecting service through Nebraska, into Sioux City, Iowa, the Dakotas, and eventually south and east back into Minnesota towards Minneapolis. Direct services out of Sioux Falls included Brookings and Yankton, South Dakota, and Sioux City, Iowa, operated by the DC-3. These flights would’ve primarily been on Douglas DC-3s, and later the Convair 340. By the spring of 1959, a more direct service to their Minneapolis hub was added, stopping in Worthington and Mankato, Minnesota. New direct service to Mitchell, South Dakota also launched as North Central pushed west towards the Black Hills and the Rocky Mountains. Fairmont, Minnesota was added in 1960 as part of the connecting MSP service. Brookings was no longer serviced direct from FSD sometime around 1962 but was still part of the North Central network. With the introduction of the Douglas DC-9 by 1966, more direct non-stop services started to show up across the North Central route network. Sioux Falls would get non-stop MSP service by 1967, with the connecting OTG-FRM-MKT service remaining on what I presume to be a Convair. Rochester, Minnesota picked up North Central service in 1968 which started in Chicago to the east, and ended in Sioux Falls to the west. By 1969 you could also fly direct to Pierre, the state capital. Mankato was dropped from the connecting FSD-MSP service in 1970 but returned shortly after. Brookings also returned to direct FSD services while Pierre was dropped. Various additions continued across the broader route map through the mid-70s as Sioux Falls settled with the small town services with a main connection to MSP.
Following the merger with Southern Airways and the formation of Republic Airlines, the Northliners and Aristocrats combined to form one massive network. With the airline struggling into the 1980s, Brookings and Mitchell, South Dakota, and Worthington, Fairmont, and Mankato, Minnesota were all dropped from Sioux Galls. To date, none of these cities have seen air service since. By 1983, you could only go direct to Sioux City, Minneapolis, and Aberdeen. Sioux City and Aberdeen were dropped by 1984, however Rapid City was added.
Then came the Northwest acquisition by 1986, with NWA taking over all the services from Republic. Mesaba Airlines, who had started a codeshare agreement with Republic a few years earlier, had now gone to Northwest as well, operating under the Northwest Airlink moniker, offering service to some of the smaller communities in South Dakota. Throughout the 1990s, Northwest would only connect to Sioux Falls with no further direct services. Aircraft for the time included prominently DC-9s, but an occasional 727 could not be ruled out. Mesaba had operated F-27s through the late 80s/early 90s, Dash 8-100s throughout the 90s, and then Saab 340s as we went into the 2000s. On a more broad level, Northwest now operated hubs at these US airports: DTW, MEM, and MSP, all coming from Republic Airlines. Back to FSD, Las Vegas was added in 2005, a bit of a unique service from my perspective. I believe they wanted to compete with Allegiant Air on this route, as they were doing pretty good on this route. This service, needless to say, didn’t last too long, and was dropped by 2006. MEM also started towards the literal tail end of their existence in 2010; Delta did not carry this service for much longer as far as I understand. Today, Delta operates to MSP and ATL, the latter of which was added in 2013. Delta remains as one of the main carriers of Sioux Falls.
