Bonanza Air Lines was a local service carrier, a scheduled airline focused on smaller routes in the Western United States (and eventually Mexico) from 1949 until it merged with two other local service airlines to form Air West in 1968.[2] Its headquarters was initially Las Vegas, Nevada, and moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 1966.[3][4]
The company started as Bonanza Air Service, a charter operator in Las Vegas, before becoming a Nevada intrastate carrier in 1946 operating between Las Vegas and Reno. In 1949 it obtained Federal certification as a local service (or feeder) airline, starting service between Phoenix and Reno the same year. In the 1950s and early 1960s the airline expanded into Arizona, Southern California and Utah, including Phoenix, Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. Until 1978 Bonanza had the only scheduled nonstop flights between Las Vegas and Reno. It became an international airline just before it merged with Pacific Air Lines and West Coast Airlines to form Air West, flying Douglas DC-9s to Mexico from Phoenix and Tucson.