Pinched Penny

With no fuss, feathers, din or dither, U. S. aviation this week came completely under control of the new Civil Aeronautics Authority. Before that, it had been the concern of an assortment of Federal agencies. One of Washington's most sprawled-out bureaus, CAA took up its quarters partly in the Bureau of Air Commerce, partly in the Bureau of Air Mail, partly in rooms rented over Childs Restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Just before CAA took over, the Post Office Department had to award contracts for several new airmail lines. Average Government subsidy for carrying the mail, during the four years since airmail contracts have been subject to competitive bidding, has been about 17-c- a mile. But for the new routes, bids reached new lows. Reason: successful bidders were to get their franchises confirmed as long as "public convenience and necessity" demanded them, when CAA took over, and would consequently have places in line if or when CAA handed out a fatter subsidy.

Choicest of the new mail links was one between Brownsville, Tex., Houston and San Antonio. Border-town Brownsville is a U. S. terminus for Pan American Airways. Only other regular commercial airline out of Brownsville, connecting with such points as Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Kansas City and Chicago, has been veteran Operator Tom Braniff's bustling Braniff Airways. Capt. Eddie Ricken-backer's Eastern Airlines, whose network of routes over the eastern side of the continent now reaches as far southwest as Houston, has coveted some of neighbor Braniff's exclusive shuttle trade.

When bids were asked, Tom Braniff and aides, "on the biggest comptometer we could find," ciphered out the infinitesimal figure of $.00001907378, per mile, put that in as their bid. Much to their disgust, Eastern, spurning machines and decimal fractions, offered the decisively low bid of $0.00. The Post Office department sniffed these bargain figures cautiously. Allowing that Eastern's zero bid might be quite legal, it hemmed and hawed, then announced that it would leave the decision up to incoming CAA. But last week, just before CAA came in, the Post Office decided that $.00001907378 saved is $.00001907378 earned, awarded the Brownsville link to zero-bidding Eastern.

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