History Of Regional Passenger Bridges

April 16, 2013
More reader insight into our cover story on GSE history.

We'll turn this week's blog over to Ed Jacob who recently filled us in by email on how passenger bridges for regional aircraft came to be:

“Here is my recollection of the birth of the jetbridge adaptor for regional aircraft.

“Simmons Airlines, aka American Eagle were operating ATRs in the Chicago market (both 42s and 72s) when I got a call one day to come down to the Champaign (CMI) airport.

“I flew down and met the staff whereupon GM Rick Gorham introduced me to one of his staff - Gordon Stewart (NOTE: Ed’s not sure of the spelling of Gordon’s last name.) Gordon, who always had an impish smile, asked if I'd like to see something they were working on, whereupon he cranked up the jetbridge and swung it around to a position close to the aft (and only) passenger door on the ATR. He then pushed an aluminum ramp out to the door sill of the ATR, and voila – we had an adaptor to enable a jetbridge work with regional aircraft!

“Gordon was a whiz – an amazing person – but it was he and Rick who master-minded this project. Gordon affixed the adaptor to the floor of the bridge in such a way that it could simply lift up just like a drawbridge.

“I knew it was so significant that our (Simmons) president at the time – Peter Piper – would be delighted with it. He got Bob Martens, then president of American Eagle, involved, and the senior staff in American Eagle in HDQ, and the rest, as they say, is history. Bob issued an edict some time later that he wanted "covered boarding" in every station where we had some exposure to weather!

“When was this?  About '72-74, I would think. At the time no one else had done anything like this to my knowledge. It took a very cooperative airport (allowing Gordon to drill holes in their jetbridge!) and a very creative (Simmons) staff to get this done – driven by Gordon and supported by Rick.

“The FBO (Flightstar) loved this also. They hired Gordon away from Eagle, and started to do "heavy" aircraft cleaning – and Lord knows the aircraft needed it in those days! They were so successful that Eagle scheduled more aircraft in there just to benefit from the cleaning!

“Next came Flightstar's foray into aircraft maintenance and they became one of Eagles major purveyors of contract maintenance, but in some ways I think that whole sequence of events was started by Gordon! He was so creative, an incredibly hard worker who was thorough in all he did and Flightstar capitalized on him!

“I'm sure I could think of some more, but perhaps this will start you off.”