Who Shall Be First?

Juan Terry Trippe, bold, indefatigable U.S. pioneer of international flying, has long realized that his Pan American Airways could not continue as a postwar monopoly. He has therefore advocated the "community company" (i.e., one overseas airline in which all U.S. transportation interests could participate) as the best U.S. policy in international aviation. Last week, for the first time, he publicly stated his whole case to Congress--which, in the end, must determine what U.S. policy will be.

Appearing before a Senate Commerce subcommittee on aviation, Pan Am's Trippe bluntly said that the U.S. would be forced to give up first place in the postwar international sky if it had to compete with itself as well as with the subsidized carriers of foreign nations.

All for One. The U.S. has first place in the international air, said Trippe, because 80% of the air traffic originates in the U.S. But that is not as attractive as it sounds. Of all U.S. air traffic, only 18% is overseas. If one company carried all of it, it would still have less traffic than a single, large domestic U.S. airline. If two or more companies had to compete for it, the cost of operation would have to be heavily subsidized by the American taxpayer.

But 14 U.S. domestic airlines have applied to the Civil Aeronautics Board for permission to fly foreign routes (eleven of them over the North Atlantic), and one (American Export Airlines) has been favorably recommended by a CAB examiner. "If they were certificated," said Trippe, "they would all be competing for that 18% of traffic that lies beyond our borders."

With the huge aircraft Pan Am has ordered for postwar use, some 440,000 passengers could be carried across the North Atlantic each year by a fleet of eight planes in winter, eleven at the height of the summer season.

End of Pan Am? Having made these points, Juan Trippe then gave the nod to a Senate bill, introduced by Nevada's Pat McCarran, which would establish the "chosen instrument," or federally regulated "community company." Such a bill would also mean the end of Pan Am as an operating agency. But Pan Am's equipment and know-how would form the nucleus of any postwar U.S. combine--at least at the outset.

Ranged against Trippe and his principal ally (United Air Lines) are the CAB, the State, Justice, War, Navy and Commerce departments, and 17 U.S. airlines. They insist that the competition which built the U.S. domestic airlines will do the same for its international airlines, and they have no misgivings about the limitations of the overseas air market.

Skycoon Trippe believes just as firmly that his plan is better for the national interest, and last week he got some help from unexpected sources. Spokesmen for labor and farm groups (the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, the International Association of Machinists and the National Grange), appearing before a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee, upheld the "chosen instrument" policy. They also roundly denounced the Administration for pushing through the major portions of the Chicago air agreement by executive order, rather than by a.treaty, subject to Senate ratification. These portions provide for reciprocal rights to land on and fly over the territories of countries subscribing to the agreement.

Muddling Through. Another group, which had every right to be professionally interested, joined in criticizing the Chicago conference. David L. Behncke, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, sent a hot telegram to Senator Wallace H. White Jr., member of the subcommittee, protesting that his organization had been peremptorily barred from testifying at Chicago. Like the labor and farm groups, he also wanted Senate consideration of the entire Chicago agreement.

This was just the beginning. Both the Senate and the U.S. would hear much more, pro & con, on the still muddled U.S. air policy. And while the U.S. was groping, her chief competitors merely waited for peace to put their policies into effect, and their planes into the air.

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