Around 1970, Suncoast Helicopters started a service of transporting canceled checks, receipts, data processing information, and other bank-related transfers between approximately 65 smaller banks up and down the west coast of central Florida, delivering them to Tampa’s major banks. They carried no cash or negotiable paper. The idea, way before the existence of the internet, was to expeditiously transport information by air instead of land, allowing banks to stay open longer and complete same-day transactions. It permitted banks to give customers their balances after transactions the next day, a concept difficult to understand in today’s instant balance availability world. The aircraft never landed at the smaller banks. They hovered about 5 feet above the bag while someone inside (called the hooker or bag man) used a snatch pole to hook the carrier bags placed on poles on the roofs of the banks and hoist them aboard.

In late 1970, The Exchange National Bank began using the services of Suncoast. The gold and white Hughes 500 bug-eyed choppers with the Exchange Bank logo emblazoned on the side could be seen daily flying around the city and above the tall buildings downtown. As new banks were built downtown, they included helipads on top. Check out the old Tampa Stadium and Al Lopez field in this photo. The missing end zone seating would date this photo pre-1974 (when construction began)

In 1979, Suncoast received an award from the FAA for flying 1 million accident-free miles. That streak ended in 1987 when an over-stuffed bag was lifted from the rooftop of Home Federal in St Petersburg, broke open, and dropped several smaller bags 150 feet, knocking holes in the roofs of two businesses and denting a car. No one was injured. As trends changed and electronic transactions took over, the bank-to-bank physical transfers became obsolete, and the service was terminated.

© Chip Weiner 2024. All rights reserved