1953 Frontier Airlines Ad Reprint Poster

The original Frontier Airlines was a "local service" airline in the U.S. formed by a merger of Arizona Airways, Challenger Airlines, and Monarch Airlines on June 1, 1950. The headquarters for the air carrier was located at Stapleton Airport in Denver. The airline dated itself to November 27, 1946, when Monarch Airlines began service in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. Frontier Airlines served cities in the Rocky Mountains bounded by Salt Lake City to the west, Billings to the north, Denver to the east, and Phoenix and El Paso to the south. It served 40 cities in the Rocky Mountain region with 12 Douglas DC-3s and 400 employees in 1950. By the time the airline ceased operations in 1986, the number of airports served over the years would grow by over a factor of four with coast to coast service as well as flights to Canada and Mexico.