Air Carolina

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

Air Carolina was the small-but-game commuter carrier from Florence, South Carolina, whose corporate lineage began as Florence Airlines. Sheffield P. Wilds received certification for Florence Airlines on December 5, 1967; by 1973, the operation was running scheduled passenger and cargo service between Florence and Charlotte with modest, propeller-driven equipment.

On March 30, 1975, Florence Airlines adopted the name Air Carolina. Its map expanded beyond the Florence–Charlotte run to include points such as Atlanta, Anderson, and Greenwood. The fleet was emphatically of the regional-airline persuasion: Piper Navajos and Chieftains, a Britten-Norman Islander, and a lone de Havilland Canada Twin Otter. No jumbo-jet swagger—just practical aircraft, tight schedules, and Carolinas-to-connection-bank hustle.

Florence remained Air Carolina’s home base, while Charlotte was the essential connecting point. The airline developed a particularly close marketing relationship with Eastern Air Lines, feeding travelers into Eastern’s Charlotte operation. In 1980, Atlantis Airlines acquired Air Carolina, bringing the independent carrier’s short, very local flight plan to a close.

Our Air Carolina collection celebrates a scrappy Florence original: a commuter-airline ghost from the era when a small prop plane, a paper timetable, and a Charlotte connection could make the region feel a whole lot closer.