Happy Days

For the long-faltering U.S. domestic airlines, the distress signals were finally hauled down. The Civil Aeronautics Board reported last week that the 16 major domestic carriers had a gross profit of $11 million for the twelve months ended

March 31, v. an operating loss of $16 million for the previous year. In the last three months, traffic had picked up so much that many an airline (e.g., American, United, Capital and Western) which had losses in 1949's first quarter thought it had earned enough in the second quarter to wipe them out and show a profit besides. American, for example, might well show a net of close to $3,000,000 for the first six months, more than enough to offset its entire 1948 loss of $2,893,671.

The domestic carriers were not the only ones flexing their muscles. The international airlines, both U.S. and foreign, were enjoying the biggest summer-travel boom in their history. Pan American Airways was making 70 peak-load overseas flights a week, ten more than at this time last year. T.W.A. was crossing the ocean 52 times weekly (v. 44 last year) and its passenger load was up 22 1/2%. Air France had been booked solid since March 1.

Many of the ocean-hoppers were making extra inducements to lure even more travelers' dollars. Last week, Scandinavian Airlines announced that its Stockholm-bound passengers could stop over in Glasgow, London or Paris for as long as they liked, at no extra charge. American Overseas Airlines, which is now taking U.S. tourists into Germany for the first time since the war, offered a choice of ten "packaged" European tours at a cost of $8 to $18 per day (including meals, hotel, tips, sightseeing, etc.) above plane fare. British Overseas Airways Corp. was pushing a round-the-world trip via Australasia for $1,886 ($93.70 below its regular fare), with stopovers up to one year.

The scheduled airlines were so jammed for space that the CAB, which had been slapping down unscheduled carriers, let four of them help out. It gave special permits to Seaboard & Western, Transocean, Alaskan and Coastal--all nonscheduled ocean flyers--to haul limited groups of U.S. students and European displaced persons at low summer rates.

Resourceful U.S. domestic wildcats had found another way to get around CAB regulations. By keeping their flights entirely within the borders of one state, they could flip their tails at CAB. In California, six wildcats flew between Los Angeles and San Francisco for $9.95--less than half the fare charged by United, American and four other certified carriers.

Last week, six airline employees' labor unions ran large ads asking CAB to put a stop to it, on the grounds that the planes were unsafe. But CAB ruefully admitted that it had no police powers within a state, unless a local flight had interstate connections.

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