West Coast was formed in 1941 and acquired Empire Airlines (formerly Zimmerly Airlines) in 1952. The company was based at Boeing Field, Seattle, and began scheduled passenger service in 1946 with a fleet of DC-3s marketed as Scenicliners.
A promotional video for the company produced in the 1960s stated that in 1946 the Civil Aeronautics Board granted the first regional airline certificate to West Coast Airlines.
West Coast was the first local service airline in the U.S. to operate turbine powered aircraft when it initiated Fairchild F-27 turboprop flights in September 1958. In June 1968 West Coast was the first airline to order Fairchild 228 regional jet airliners with the acquisition of three of the type planned. However, the Fairchild 228, which was proposed as a smaller variant of the successful Fokker F28 Fellowship twin jet, never made it to the production phase.[5] The only jet aircraft type operated by West Coast was the Douglas DC-9-14. The airline's DC-9s were configured with 75 passenger seats in an all coach layout.
On July 1, 1968 West Coast merged with Pacific Air Lines and Bonanza Air Lines to form Air West, which was renamed Hughes Airwest in 1970. At the time of the merger West Coast operated Douglas DC-9 jet, Fairchild F-27 propjet, Douglas DC-3 and Piper Navajo aircraft. The DC-3 aircraft were not transferred to the new Air West operation but were instead retired. The West Coast route system at the time of the merger included an extensive network of destinations in Idaho, Oregon and Washington State as well as several cities in Montana. San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento in northern California were served as well as was Salt Lake City, Utah. The route map also included West Coast's only international destination: Calgary, Alberta in western Canada which was served with Fairchild F-27 propjet flights from Spokane. Service to Seattle was provided in a singular fashion as all West Coast flights operated via Boeing Field (BFI) and thus not from Seattle/Tacoma International Airport. After the merger, Air West continued to operate from Boeing Field before eventually moving all flights to Seattle/Tacoma International (SEA).
