Go to Hell thru [what city?] first

[Alice Faber]

RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>I tried this and found six hits for Atlanta and two for Dallas. I found
>nothing about Eastern Airlines at all. Current use, then, would seem
>to be divided
>between Delta (Atlanta) and American (Dallas).
>
>According to <http://www.aerosite.net/logos32.htm>, Atlanta and Miami were
>Eastern Hubs, from the 1950s until they went out of business (in the 1980s?).
>Thus it is totrally reasonable that the saying began with Eastern and then
>swtiched to Delta when Eastern collapsed. It makes sense, too, that
>Dallas would
>fill in the blank for American users.
>
>It is interesting, though, that this seems to be mostly a Southern
>expression. After all, Delta and American both have hubs other than
>Atlanta. But I don't
>find any record of Los Angeles or Chicago or St. Louis or New York (all
>American hubs) filling the blank. Or even Miami (American's gateway to South
>America).
>
>I wonder why?

I suspect that the answer lies in the history of airline routes. When
I was in Austin in the 1970s, the innovation for our travel was that
instead of changing in Dallas for travel to anywhere other than
Chicago, we got new routes directly to a fair number of other cities
(Atlanta, New York, LA). When I moved to Gainesville, the hub system
was quite novel; but it's spread since then.
--
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Alice Faber                                             faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                                  tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                                     fax (203) 865-8963