My trip to Miami in '84 was with Air Florida... thoroughly enjoyed it, first airline flight in quite a while - recall looking out of the window and seeing Norfolk and Oceana NAS below and Cape Hatteras off the wingtip...
PBA, apart from the 404s there were DC-3s, YS-11s, 402s and the Bandits - past its heyday for propliners but still plenty of them. Mentioned N136PB in the |Telegrapg comments the other day, she's still flying.
As for Self Loading Freight using rear airstairs... one extricated one's self from a Dan-Air 727 at Munich in 1986!