Before we talk about the special relationship, Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines had with the Boeing 727, let’s first take a closer look at the plane and see how it came to be. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, America’s three biggest airlines, United Airlines, Eastern Airlines, and American Airlines, were looking for a jet to operate out of airports with short runways.
United Airlines asked Boeing to build a four-engine plane suitable for operations out of its high-altitude hub at Denver…