AVIATION: 16 v. Pan Am

The stage was set last week for the hottest political fight U.S. airlines have ever tangled in. The prize: postwar international air transport. Last week, 16 (out of 19) airlines plunked $250,000 into a brand-new committee to fight for “free” worldwide competition. Their aim: to blast out of its top-dog spot Pan American Airways, which monopolized prewar international air travel.

This was no cat-&-dog wrangle. Behind the potent new committee (The Airlines Committee on International Routes) was the tremendous prestige—and smart flyer’s brains—of the Army Air Forces’ chief, General H. H. (“Hap”) Arnold. Ten days ago, General Arnold hastily called a hush-hush meeting in Washington of the U.S. airlines which operate routes for the Army’s world-straddling Air Transport Command. (Pan American was included.) General Arnold advised them to take steps.

What these steps should be came out at the second—and widely publicized—meeting of 16 U.S. airlines last week. This time Pan Am did not attend. Neither did American Export Airlines (which now operates to Ireland), nor United Air Lines. The reason was soon plain.

The Harpoon. The conferees adopted a five-point program: 1) free and open worldwide air competition, subject to reasonable Federal regulation; 2) private ownership and management; 3) Federal encouragement of a worldwide air transport system; 4) worldwide freedom of transit in peaceful flight; 5) acquisition by the U.S. of the civil and commercial outlets required in the public interest.

The harpoon for Pan Am came in a statement of policy: “There can be no rational basis for permitting” air transport outside the U.S. to be “left to the withering influence of monopoly.” To implement the new “free” policy, the 16 airlines served notice on CAB that they will promptly file petitions for permission to operate worldwide air routes.

Weapon to Swing. In the face of this all-out attack, Pan Am’s suave President Juan T. Trippe was mum, but not idle. United Air Lines, second largest U.S. domestic line and operator of many an ATC route, had been reported in favor of the new committee. United did not appear at the second session. Then news came that United now favored a policy in which one company “or at the most two or three in different territories” should operate the U.S. share of international airlines. .

No secret is General Arnold’s dislike of Pan Am’s peacetime monopoly. When ATC was set up, he gave domestic U.S. airlines (with little international experience) the lion’s share. Thus General Arnold has already built up the weapon to smash Pan Am’s grip on world routes.

A Fire under CAB. Why is General Arnold suddenly so interested in postwar air competition? One likely reason: the Army has decided that the more U.S. companies operate air routes to foreign countries, the better the Army will be equipped to handle postwar emergencies.

But postwar U.S. air policy is part of any postwar peace, must square with what Britain and the other United Nations do, with what Congress decides. Pan Am’s diplomatic Trippe is an old expert with Congress. But never has Juan Trippe been confronted by such a solid phalanx of airlines, such a potent battler as the U.S. Army. Pan Am is in for the knockdown, drag-out battle of its tumultuous career.