Who were the last commercial operators of the Constellation?

The Constellation's withdrawal from scheduled passenger service took place in the late 1960s. The last scheduled flight of a Constellation in the continental United States was made by a TWA L749 on May 11, 1967, between Philadelphia and Kansas City, Missouri. In North America, the last one fell to Western Airlines' N86525, which on November 26, 1968, flew in Alaska from Anchorage to Yakutat and Juneau.

The military versions followed a similar path. The last C-121A were withdrawn in 1968, and the Air National Guard's aircraft in 1973. After leaving military service, some C-121 and R7V-1 passed into the hands of civilian operators, who used them as cargo aircraft. It was in that niche, far from major airports and scheduled routes, that the Constellation held out longest for commercial purposes.

The last commercial operators were small cargo airlines from the Dominican Republic that flew to Miami with surplus military Constellations bought at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. Some of these aircraft survived. The HI-542CT, named "City of Miami," is parked on a disused runway at Rafael Hernández Airport in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. Of another, the HI-548CT of the former Aerochago, the cockpit survives, converted into a simulator. These are the remnants of an era in which these veterans, already surpassed by jets, continued to earn a living carrying cargo between the Caribbean and Florida.