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Airways Bus & Taxi Company
| Businesses | | Housing | | Airways Bus |

A wartime business that thrived as a direct result of the RCAF Station was the Airways Bus and Taxi Company, later known as the Airways Bus and Transfer Company. In January 1941 Mr. Wm. E. Smallman was granted a franchise for a bus service between town and the airport. The service got underway when two buses, each with a capacity of 40 passengers, arrived. There were also four Ford Sedans running on a 24-hour schedule as metered taxis. A request was granted by the Town Council for the company to have reserved parking at the corner of First and Central streets where the business originally had its dispatch office.


In the summer of 1941 the company began to offer special trips to dances, and to Cavendish beach and golf course. The buses were also available for chartered trips.

The company did a booming business. The office in the former Pope's garage on Summer Street suffered a small fire in August 1942 but there was no interruption to the service.

Mr. Smallman was generous in providing extra trips for special events at the Station and sometimes offered free transportation. For example, he took the High School boys to an Open House at the No. 1 GRS in November 1943. More evidence of his generosity was the provision of "snappy" uniforms to outfit the Station Hockey Team in February 1942 and the use of his depot for receiving magazines that were donated to the Air Force.

In May 1943 the No. 10 Bombing and Gunnery School at Mount Pleasant was added to the route. The two original buses were replaced by eight new ones each able to carry 30 to 55 passengers. By 1944 there were 10 drivers and 3 garage repairmen. The day started at 6 a.m. and didn't end until 2 a.m.

The year of 1944 was the banner year for the Airways Bus Company. A regular day's schedule consisted of 38 trips to the No. 1 and No. 10 Schools. In January of that year the buses carried 40,986 passengers and covered over 27,000 miles. A particularly bad snowstorm stranded three buses at the No. 1 School for more than 25 hours. A bulldozer and 60 men worked to dig them out of the snow.

During the summer of 1944, ten additional runs to cover the evening hours were added to the schedule. In addition to this, the company did some charter service to take trainees from the railway station to either the No. 1 or No. 10 Schools and handled overflow work for the SMT bus line to Charlottetown.


By September 1945 the Mount Pleasant School had closed and the number of personnel at the St Eleanors School had dropped considerably. The need for the service was lessened to the point that the office was closed. In February 1946 the company was sold to Island Motor Transport Co. Ltd.

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