Jamaica Air Taxi (i)

♦ The very first iteration of Jamaica Air Taxi was founded in 1959 by an American named Rudy Mantel, who leased a single Stinson V-77 Reliant to fly tourists and locals across the island. The carrier started operations in early 1959 but stopped operations just several months later in 1959. The British Air Registration Board (which governed Jamaican aviation safety at the time) demanded highly expensive maintenance and airworthiness work on the Stinson aircraft. Unable to justify the costs, Mantel returned the plane to its owner in the U.S., forcing the tiny air taxi service to fold ♦