Category AVIATION &ТНЕ ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

As a result of the hearings, President Ford caused the resignation of the Chairman of the CAB, Robert Timm, and in early 1975 appointed John

Robson, an Undersecretary at the Department of Transportation and a career bureaucrat, in his place. Although Robson knew little about the airline industry, he set about to remedy the short­comings and failures that had been disclosed in the Kennedy hearings, including the liberaliza­tion of charter rules and the approving of new routes, which continued during Robson’s tenure at the CAB. A CAB staff report was issued in July 1975 recommending deregulation within five years. Incredibly, in April 1976, all of the CAB commissioners announced that they sup­ported deregulation.

The changes kept coming under what was now known as “de facto deregulation.” Liberal­ization of charter rules had these operations fly­ing more routes, longer distances, and with fewer restrictions, thus creating immediate competition for the scheduled airlines. This, in turn, caused the scheduled airlines to make application to the CAB for permission to make a legitimate, long – range competitive response to the charterers. The CAB then began granting those applications, thereby setting up an incipient competition there­tofore unknown under regulation. Airlines were then allowed to unilaterally raise or lower prices “within zones of reasonableness,” and on speci­fied routes, they could enter or exit without prior authority.

The CAB had no jurisdiction over intrastate carriers like Southwest Airlines, and although Southwest could charge what it pleased subject only to the rules of the Texas Public Utilities Commission, its fares were substantially less than those mandated under the CAB regimen. Southwest was stiff competition for any air­line flying within the borders of Texas and that competition included interstate carriers Texas International and American Airlines. When Texas International sought CAB authority for its “peanut fares,” (its regular CAB-mandated fare discounted 50 percent) in order to com­pete with Southwest, the CAB obliged. Again, when American Airlines wanted to institute its “Supersaver” fare in March 1977, a charter-like discount theretofore prohibited by CAB phi­losophy, the CAB approved. Significantly, the “Supersaver” fares applied to seats on regularly scheduled flights on which standard fare pas­sengers had purchased tickets. Thus began the confusing and seemingly inequitable pattern of full-fare passengers seated beside someone who had paid a fraction of full fare. These low fares also invited into the cabin leisure passen­gers, bringing with them their small children and babies, to occupy the center seat previously left unfilled. American Airline’s coast-to-coast traffic soon increased by 61 percent.

Word spread and the trend continued as Allegheny Airlines instituted “Simple Saver” fares and TWA started “Super-Jackpot” fares to Las Vegas. By 1978, discount fares were widely available, prices had fallen by 8 percent, and air traffic had increased by 17 percent. Whether noticed or not, deregulation had already begun.

To fly has been a dream, although an elusive dream, of humankind from time immemorial. Through the ages, mockingly the birds of the air swirled and swooped with graceful ease over earthbound man. Man continued to look to the sky, and to dream on. The first flights of man were not to be patterned after the winged crea­tures; that had proven over the millennia to be too complex. Man’s first exploration aloft was the result of the observations of two wealthy French brothers, Jacques-Etienne and Joseph – Michel Montgolfier, who happened to be paper – makers in Annonay, France. They observed that fire seemed to have the quality of supporting certain light solid objects, like paper, and that they were borne aloft on what they theorized was a lighter than air gas. Experimentation led to the first hot air balloon ascent in 1783. This was followed that same year by a successful two-hour flight of a balloon filled with hydrogen gas, the brainchild of a French chemist, Jacques- Alexandre-Cesar Charles. Hydrogen gas had been first isolated in 1766 by the British chemist Henry Cavendish. The first ascent by humans in a balloon was also recorded in 1783 near Paris, piloted by Jean-Francois de Rozier.

Within two years, there were people who called themselves “aeronauts,” and who devoted significant effort to getting off the ground and going somewhere. In 1785, aeronaut Jean-Pierre Blanchard, accompanied by an American, John

Jeffries, made the first successful crossing of the English Channel from Dover to Calais.

Balloons immediately found a use as obser­vation platforms during the French Revolu­tion and, later, during the American Civil War. (See Figure 5-1.) War again provided func­tion to the balloons in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) as observation vehicles, and even as an escape vehicle when French minister Leon Gambetta floated out of the besieged city of Paris to the very great consternation of the opposing forces. Progressing from war to war, it seems, once again balloons were used for observation in World War I, but now they were joined by, and opposed by, fighter aircraft.

Until the modern age, the record for dis­tance traveled in piloted balloons stood from 1914, when the balloon Berliner covered a dis­tance of 1,896 miles from Bitterfeld, Germany to

Perm, Russia. Toward the middle and latter 20th century, extraordinary feats have accompanied balloon flight. In 1960, Capt. Joe Kittinger of the U. S. Air Force ascended in a polyethylene balloon to an altitude of 102,800 feet, setting an altitude record. Fie then bailed out of the gondola to set a free-fall parachute descent record for the time. The balloon altitude record was broken the next year during an ascent to 113,700 feet. In 1984, Kittinger piloted a 3,000 cubic meter bal­loon from Caribou, Maine to Cairo Montenotte, Italy, covering 3,543 miles. He thus became the first, and only, person to solo a balloon across the Atlantic Ocean. Kittenger’s free-fall para­chute jump record stood for over 50 years until broken by the Austrian, Felix Baumgartner, on October 12, 2012. Although the Kittinger ascent and jump was a government project (United States Air Force), the Baumgarnter adventure was funded by the Austrian company Red Bull GmbH, which produces the eponymous energy drink, Red Bull; Kissinger served as technical advisor on the project. Baumgartner also became the first man to break the sound barrier without an airplane, reaching an unofficial speed of mach 1.24 in freefall.

It was one thing to have these new tools available; it was yet another thing altogether to be able to use them in actual flight. U. S. Army pilot William C. Ocker nearly crashed one day in 1918 testing the Sperry turn indicator. He could not convince himself to trust these new instruments instead of his senses, as he and every other military pilot had been taught: “Ignore them”; “Fly by the seat of your pants,” they were told. Pilots who relied on anything other than a magnetic compass and the altimeter were considered lightweight and weak.

During a routine Army physical exam in 1926, Ocker was subjected to a Jones-Barany chair, which is a spinning, swiveling seat designed to measure balance and equilibrium. When deprived of his visual cues, he naturally became completely disoriented and confused. He could not tell if he was stationary or spinning, or which way. With the doctor’s help, he practiced using the turn indicator and a pen light rigged up in a shoe box as he was spun around. Watch­ing only inside the box, he could tell the doctor which way he was going, and how fast. This

device, the “Ocker Box,” became the first blind flying trainer. (See Figure 10-8.)

In spite of the Army’s refusal to teach instrument flying, Ocker became something of an advocate, and convinced many pilots of the worth of his designs. The Army forced Ocker to undergo psychological exams for his pen­chant for sitting in spinning chairs. He invented the idea of the covered cockpit, used by Jimmy Doolittle for a flight around the pattern in 1929, but Ocker made the first cross-country flight in a completely covered cockpit on June 24, 1930, flying 900 miles from Brooks Field, Texas to Scott Field, Illinois.

Pan American pilots soon began using Ocker’s techniques and instruments. In 1932, in cooperation with Col. Carl Crane, he published the world’s first instrument flight manual, Blind Flight in Theory and Practice. The Soviet Air Force adopted the book before the U. S. Army did. Orville Wright called him a “missionary” and he considered among his friends Eddie Rick – enbacker, Billy Mitchell, and Jimmy Doolittle. A year after his death in 1942, the Army made his training procedures standard for all military pilots.3

At the same time, experimentation was proceeding on various fronts, including with

radio, not only as a means of voice communi­cation from air to ground, but also as a means of navigation. By May 15, 1920, airmail ser­vice had been extended westward from Chicago to Omaha, Nebraska, establishing a through route all the way from New York. On August 16, 1920, a route was added southward from Chicago to St. Louis. On September 8, 1920, the transcontinental route was completed to San Francisco. Although the airmail service operated only during daylight hours, the rail­road coast-to-coast mail time was bettered by 22 hours.

The promise of airmail was yet unfulfilled. Moreover, Otto Praeger was concerned that the entire airmail program might be cancelled if bet­ter results were not soon achieved. Night flying was the only way to free the airmail service from its earthbound dependence on the railroads. Fly­ing at night had been experimented with, and successfully under certain conditions, like clear, moonlit nights, for short distances. But what about transcontinental distances on a regular schedule? Could it be done?

Ш A New Broom Sweeps Clean

The Great Depression was getting seriously underway in 1933, at the time that the Republi­can Hoover Administration was vacating office and the Democratic Franklin Roosevelt Admin­istration was sweeping in with reform on its mind. Big business had ruled during the Roaring Twenties. The stock market increasingly through that decade had reflected in price the explosion in commerce and development, much money had been made and people were happy. But in 1933, the bread lines were long and were filled with disillusioned and angry men. The majority of vot­ers had voted, in effect, to “throw the bums out.” And so it was that the Democrats arrived in town with an agenda, a mandate even, to begin to set things straight. In the process, a rare opportunity was seen to make a little political hay and find out who and what was to blame for the mess the country found itself in.

Hugo Black came to the U. S. Senate in 1926 as a Democrat from Alabama, where he had enhanced his political career by winning local judicial elections and with membership in the Ku Klux Klan. While a lawyer there, he mostly sued corporations representing personal injury
claimants. He considered himself a populist, and was re-elected to the Senate in 1932. He was a supporter of Franklin Roosevelt’s bid for the presidency, and after Roosevelt’s election, he was an ardent supporter of New Deal (anti­corporate) initiatives.

In fact, the 1932 election gave the Demo­crats the control of the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the White House. Control of the entire government was theirs. In February 1933, Black proposed a resolution to establish a special investigatory committee to inquire into the government’s system of awarding ocean mail and airmail contracts, claiming that dur­ing the Hoover Administration they had become government giveaways to Hoover’s friends and associates. The tension between the Democrats and Republicans was only heightened during the last days of the Hoover Administration when the Democrats requested the Postmaster General to defer awarding any further mail contracts. Black had been tipped off by a reporter that the Post Office Department was planning to sign an ocean mail contract with Philadelphia Steamship Company before the Democrats had a chance to replace the Postmaster General. Walter F. Brown awarded four new contracts anyway.

The Committee began its investigation on March 4, 1933, and for four months plowed through documents and testimony without uncovering much in the way of skullduggery. In fact, it was shown that all contract awards had been approved by the guardian of the national purse, Comptroller General McCarl. When Black started digging into the airmail awards, he thought he had finally struck pay dirt when he learned of the 1930 meetings in Brown’s office with the Big Four. The press, who Time Maga­zine reported was feeding the questions to Black,1 quickly labeled those meetings “the spoils con­ferences.” The label stuck.

Small airline operators told of being excluded from the bidding process, or having their lower bids thrown out in favor of higher bids from larger carriers. Black cast his net wide. He sent out Interstate Commerce Com­mission agents with synchronized watches, armed with subpoenas to swoop down on the aviation companies without warning. When it was learned that Republican William P. Mac – Cracken (the former head of the Bureau of Aeronautics) was present at the 1930 meetings, he was subpoenaed to produce his personal files for examination. On MacCracken’s refusal, he was held in contempt of the Senate and ulti­mately jailed for 10 days by the Committee. But the main object of scorn was Walter F. Brown, whom Black saw as the author and architect of the whole scheme.

To Black, what the hearings produced was confirmation that the air carriers had exploited the public through inflated contract rates charged to the government, that the airlines’ manufac­turing arms had made huge profits from mili­tary procurement contracts, and that speculation in airline stocks had profited them all. It was not fully explained how these conclusions com­pared with the undisputed fact that the cost to the government of airmail delivery under Brown’s administration had been cut in half, from $1.10 per mile to $.54 per mile, in four years. But such are the hazards of credibility in politically motivated pursuits. Nor was it appreciated that the air carriers were stable, growing, and though still formative, rendering an air transportation service. Of what interest were airlines to a popu­lace that did not have enough to eat? This was a relevant, if short-sighted, question.

James Farley was appointed Postmaster Gen­eral in the new Roosevelt Administration. To him fell the duty of carrying out the verdict of Black, sanctioned by the president by way of presidential order, that all of the existing airmail contracts held by the airlines then operating were to be can­celled forthwith on the basis that they were fraud­ulently procured. The airmail, decreed Farley, would be carried by the Army Air Corps. All this was made official on February 9, 1934 by Execu­tive Order 6591, signed by President Roosevelt. On February 11, 1934, Charles Lindbergh sent a letter to the president that stated, in part:

“Your action of yesterday affects funda­mentally the industry to which I have devoted the last 12 years of my life. Therefore, I respect­fully present to you the following considerations. The personal and business lives of American citizens have been built up around the right to a just trial before conviction. Your order of can­cellation of all air mail contracts condemns the largest portion of our commercial aviation with­out just trial. The officers of a number of the organizations affected have not been given the opportunity of a hearing and improper acts by many companies affected have not been estab­lished. . . . Your present actions do not discrimi­nate between innocence and guilt and place no premium on honest business. . . . The United States today is far in the lead in almost every branch of commercial aviation. In America we have commercial aircraft, engines, equip­ment, and airlines superior to those of any other country. The greatest part of this progress has been brought about through the airmail. Cer­tainly. . . this development has been carried on in cooperation with the existing government and according to law. If this is not the case it seems the right of the industry and in keeping with

American tradition that facts to the contrary be definitely established. Unless these facts leave no alternative the condemnation of commercial aviation by cancellation of all mail contracts and the use of army pilots on commercial airlines will unnecessarily and greatly damage all Ameri­can aviation.”

Army pilots were basically untrained in cross-country flying and had neither knowledge of nor experience in flying the routes that the mails took across the country. Their airplanes were all open cockpits and contained few of the instruments that had become standard in just a few short years due to Brown’s enticements to the airlines. By the end of the first week of fly­ing, five pilots had been killed in accidents and six were critically injured. The Army pilots began flying only in daylight hours, thus delaying mail delivery. Within five weeks, 12 Army pilots had died. It became clear that a major mistake had been made. New bids to reinstate private carriage of the airmail were called for, but under a revised set of rules.

A temporary arrangement had to be put in place immediately, pending adoption of leg­islation. Postmaster General Farley called a meeting of airline representatives, like Wal­ter Folger Brown had done. But this time, none of the airlines involved in the “spoils conferences,” nor any of the executives who attended them, could participate in the new round of bidding. Neither could a bidding air­line be involved in the manufacture of aircraft designed to be used in the airline business, like the Boeing-Rentschler combination at United. Vertical holding companies that exercised con­trol over the actual airlines were disallowed. Rectitude reigned supreme in public, but in private, practicality ruled the day. Cosmetic name changes by the Big Four were accepted as serious compliance with the new rules, changes like American Airways becoming American Airlines and Eastern Air Transport becom­ing Eastern Air Lines. In fact, after the bids were opened on April 20, 1934, the commercial airline industry looked very much the same as it did before Black started his quest for justice the year before.

Two significant changes did occur. An upstart airline named Braniff Airways beat out United on the Dallas-Chicago route, and the crop dusting С. E. Woolman, operating as Delta Airlines, had secured the Dallas to Charleston,

S. C. route. Each of these new airlines would ulti­mately make the most of their opportunity.

Walter Brown would continue unrepen­tant and dignified amidst the righteous alarms of Black and other politicians who sought to capitalize at the expense of his reputation. The airlines whose contracts had been terminated, although back in the airmail business within a short time, had lost a significant amount of money by continuing operations in the interim, but only United Air Lines resorted to litigation against the government because of the contract cancellations. That litigation would drag out for another 10 years. And, when finally concluded, it would uphold the government’s right to terminate the airmail contracts.2 The court did, however, award money damages to the United group for contract payments earned prior to the cancella­tions. The opinion, which is 104 pages in length, is a detailed chronology of the events that trans­pired after passage of the Watres Act.

efore the war, air travel had begun to catch on, and in 1941 domestic airlines carried four million passengers. With the war over in 1945, air travel quickly picked up again, and by the end of 1945 the airlines had enplaned some 7.5 million passengers. In 1946, the num­ber almost doubled to 12.5 million passengers. The commercial airline fleet before the war pro­vided about 6,200 seats. By 1946, the airlines had tripled capacity to 19,000 available seats. The cost of airline travel had fallen enough to be competitive with first class railroad fares, and the four-hour plane ride between Chicago and New York offered a real choice for any time-sensitive traveler over the sixteen-hour railroad Pullman. It was a new day in commercial aviation.

The development of transport aircraft had progressed rapidly during the war. The expectation was that the prewar traffic would be promptly reclaimed and then exponentially developed using the new era of airliners. Some of the aircraft were suited to expanding the first class travel begun in the 1930s, particularly on the transcontinental and transoceanic runs. Mod­ern airlines of the postwar era were on the verge of entering the first class travel market long held by the steamship lines and the transcontinen­tal Pullman trains. While it was true that some
airlines using DC-3s had offered berths for sleep­ing on overnight flights, now airliners could fly much higher and faster, and in pressurized and air-conditioned comfort.

TWA launched transatlantic service on December 5, 1945, with a VIP flight to Paris that was completed in the record time of 12 hours and 57 minutes. Pressurized, and with a cruise speed of 280 miles per hour, the Connie was ready to contribute to the anticipated revolution in transat­lantic and transcontinental air travel.

The number of airports used by the airlines more than doubled between 1941 and 1947, from 2,484 to 5,343. Outside the terminals, new sleek aircraft for the first time took on the look of fly­ing in place with their new tricycle landing gear. Interspersed among the ubiquitous DC-3s that appeared to be sitting back on their haunches, these new planes stood tall over them and gave an impression of progress, comfort, and safety. The airplanes were getting larger than the termi­nals in some places. Mass transit, facilitated by the big airliners, was about to begin.

The DC-4, which had been commandeered by the military upon its appearance in 1942, became available to the domestic fleet in 1946. (See Fig­ure 18-1.) Unpressurized, seating 44 passengers and barely able to muster 200 miles per hour at

cruise, the DC-4 was out-classed by the Connie, yet it became in the late 1940s the four-engine airplane of choice. Its service during the war had proved it to be safe and reliable, something yet to be proved in the Constellation and other advanced aircraft emerging from the war. The tapered lines of the Constellation, its more complex systems, its three vertical stabilizers, and the number of parts required to be stored and available also caused it to be significantly more expensive to maintain than the DC-4. (See Figure 18-2.) The straight lines of the DC-4 proved to be much cheaper to repair, maintain, and to fly.

The availability of these new aircraft increased the airlines’ capacity and brought with them options for airline management that had never before been possible. This may be the point in history when the concept of the passenger seat as a “grapefruit,” as in a perishable commod­ity, was articulated as a marketing truism. Every unfilled seat at takeoff was like spoiled grapefruit for that flight; it was forever lost to use. Competi­tive management thinking recognized that high – density seating brought with it pure profit after boarding enough passengers to cover costs.

The scheduled airlines were, and had always been, of one class, and that was first class. When

comparisons were made between the airlines and the railroads as to cost, an airline seat was com­pared to a Pullman berth (these accommodations were seats during day travel and were converted to beds for night travel). The high cost of air travel could be favorably compared to first class rail fares because of the time-distance advantage between comparable points enjoyed by the airlines.

After the war, the CAB began loosening the regulations that bound the air-traveling public to the scheduled airlines (first class service). This allowed aircraft charter, or as some called it, the nonscheduled lines, or “nonskeds.” Using DC-3s and then DC-4s, these charter operators flew at off hours, at night, and most importantly, with full airplanes. Not bound to a schedule, these operators were not required to leave the terminal at any par­ticular time. Their schedule was simply dictated by the passenger count. And passengers flocked to them. Soon the nonskeds were going coast to coast and at prices that were 30 percent less than the scheduled airlines. They did the same thing on some international routes, notably to Puerto Rico.

Pan Am’s official name had been changed in 1945 from Pan American Airways to Pan Ameri­can World Airways. Juan Trippe was again ahead of the game and ready for the postwar contest. He saw that by seating five abreast in the DC-4, the passenger count could increase from 44 to 63. But the question remained in what market such a configuration could be put to use. And fares would certainly have to be reduced in order to induce anyone to put up with such crowding. Here, Juan Trippe was about 30 years ahead of his time, ahead of the days of deregulation that would come in 1978.

In 1948, Pan American began flying DC-4s from New York to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico was a relatively impoverished island, and most of its inhabitants could not afford expensive travel of either kind, ship or plane. The low stan­dard of living in Puerto Rico and its mortality rate combined to provide motivation to some people to leave the country. Pan Aon tapped this large market for mass air transit in the newly configured DC-4,

which had no galley and only one flight attendant. Any Puerto Rican with $75 was given the opportu­nity to begin a new life in New York, which had a Puerto Rican population of 70,000 at that time. By 1950, there would be 250 thousand Puerto Rican residents in New York City. By 1975, five million of the island’s former residents had migrated to the United States.

Domestically, the airlines were losing money to the nonskeds, so they petitioned the CAB for authority to operate a second class of service. “Air coach,” as it was called, was intro­duced by the scheduled airlines in 1948. Some of the crews began to refer to the new passengers as “cattle class.” The airlines saw that they could compete with the railroads, not just for first class passengers, but also for coach passengers. Capi­tal Airlines became the first established carrier to offer “coach-class” service, inaugurated on the New York-Chicago route. At a fare of two-thirds
the standard, there were few complaints of over­crowding, late night departures, or the lack of a meal service. TWA and American followed suit with their transcontinental service. By the end of 1951, nine domestic carriers offered coach or tourist class service to 34 cities. In 1952, fares were $99 coast-to-coast; $32 between Chicago and New York. Airline passenger traffic doubled in the five years between 1948 and 1952. By 1955, the airlines had passed the railroads for the first time in the number of passengers carried.

For a while the “coach” or “tourist” class flights operated as separate airplanes both domestically and internationally. The smaller international carriers complained to the Inter­national Air Transport Association (IATA) that they could not compete with larger airlines since they did not possess the necessary number of aircraft to operate both first class and tourist class airplanes. When IATA authorized them to
operate their equipment carrying both first class and tourist in the same airplane, the modern form of aircraft configuration was born. TWA was the first to begin domestic operations with both fare classes on the same airplane after CAB approval.

A new group of air carrier, known collec­tively as local service lines or feeder lines, com­pleted their first full year of service in 1946. While the CAB would not expand the total number of trunk airlines beyond the sixteen that were grandfathered under the Civil Aeronau­tics Act of 1938, these smaller carriers received authority to operate on short routes to some 350 small cities. The average distance flown between stops was about 60 miles, and some of the com­munities served had populations of as few as

3,0 people. By the end of 1951, there were 18 local service airlines operating 130 airplanes.

The Continent Grows Smaller

Coast-to-Coast

1840 The ox-drawn covered wagon………………………………………………………. 6 to 8 months

1846 Sailing vessels around the Horn…………………………………………………. 6…………. 1/2 months

1849 Steam vessels around the Horn…………………………………………………. 4…………. 1/2 months

1858 Overland mail coaches and rail……………………………………………………… 24-30 days…… ^3^

1861 Pony Express and rail……………………………………………………………………………. 11-13 days

1869 First transcontinental train………………………………………………………………… 7 days…. 1933

1903 First transcontinental automobile trip………………………………………………. 61 days…. 1934

1911 First transcontinental airplane trip Calbraith R Rodgers:

Sheepshead Bay, L. I. to Pasadena,………………………………………………….. California 49 days ^35

1919 First transcontinental round trip by air:

Lt. Belvin W. Maynard……………………………………………………… 9 days 4 hours 25 min. jg37

1920 First air-rail mail: NewYork-San Francisco………………………………………… 72 hours

1921 First all-air mail: San Francisco-New York………………………………. 33 hours 20 min. 1938

1923 First non-stop coast-to-coast flight:

Lts. John A. Macready and Oakley Kelly 1943

New York-San Diego, May 2-3………………………………………………….. 26 hours 50 min.

1924 Fastest transcontinental railroad trip…………………………………….. 69 hours 7 min.

Standard transcontinental railroad trip……………………………………………… 87 hours 1945

Regular air mail, day and night schedule…………………………………………… 32 hours

First dawn-to-dusk coast-to-coast flight:

Col. Russell L. Maughan, NewYork-San Francisco, June 23……… 21 hours 44 min.

1927 First coast-to-coast commercial air passengers:

NewYork-San Francisco………………………………………………………….. 31 hours 45 min.

Round-trip record by Frank Hawks:

New York-Los Angeles……………………………………………………………… 19 hours 10 min.

Los Angeles-New York……………………………………………………………… 17 hours 38 min.

First air-rail passenger service…………………………………………………………… 48 hours

New round-trip record by Frank Hawks:

Los Angeles-New York, August 12……………………………………………. 14 hours 50 min.

New York-Los Angeles, August 15……………………………………………. 12 hours 25 min.

Record by Jimmy Doolittle:

Burbank-Newark, September 4…………………………………………………. 11 hours 15 min.

Regular coast-to-coast air passenger, mail, and express schedule 19 hours 35 min.

Jack Frye and E. V. Rickenbacker in regular commercial transport plane:

Los Angeles-Newark, February 18-19……………………………………….. 13 hours 4 min.

Jack Frye with mail: Los Angeles-New York, May 8……………………. 11 hours 30 min.

Record by Leland S. Andrews and H. B. Snead:

Los Angeles-Washington, February 20…………………………………….. 10 hours 22 min.

Record by Howard Hughes:

Los Angeles-New York, January 19…………………………………. 7 hours 28 min. 25 sec.

Westbound record by A. R DeSeversky:

Brooklyn-Burbank, August 29………………………………………… 10 hours 2 min. 55 sec.

Regular schedule for passengers, mail, express…………………………………. 16 hours

New record by Howard Hughes and 17 passengers in transport plane:

Burbank-Washington, April 17……………………………………….. 6 hours 57 min. 51 sec.

Regular extra fare service:

New York-Los Angeles……………………………………………………………… 14 hours 35 min.

Record in transport plane:

Seattle-Washington, January 10……………………………………. 6 hours 3 min. 50 sec.

FIGURE 18-4 Less time to cross the continent.

Since passage of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, responsibility for carrying out enforcement proce­dures for violations of the FARs has resided with the FAA. Enforcement options open to the FAA in any given case are normally dictated by consider­ations already well-established within the agency, and are generally handled either as administrative dispositions (warning notices and letters of correc­tion) or by certificate action (suspension or revo­cation). Occasionally, civil penalties are assessed in lieu of certificate action (historically against corporations or against working pilots where cer­tificate suspension is deemed too harsh).

Operations

The FAA is charged with the operation and main­tenance of a vast array of facilities and equipment within the aviation system. We will briefly review the major categories of FAA responsibility.

Air Traffic Control

The АТС system includes airport control tow­ers, air route traffic control centers (ARTCC), terminal radar approach control (TRACON), and flight service stations (FSS).

The FAA estimates that it will lose 10,291 controllers, or about 70 percent of the controller workforce, between 2006 and 2015 due to retire­ments. The large percentage loss is due to the unlawful PATCO strike in 1981, when President Reagan fired almost 11,000 controllers. From 1982 through 1991, the FAA hired an average of 2,655 controllers each year. These controllers will become eligible for retirement during the next decade.

In 1982, the FAA began a program of out­sourcing operation at a limited number of VFR towers. As of 2006, 231 towers in 46 states par­ticipate in the FAA’s Contract Tower Program.

In 2005, the FAA entered into a contract with Lockheed Martin to operate the 58 Flight Service Stations located in the contiguous United States.

Radio Aids to Navigation

These facilities include VORs, VORTACs, instrument landing systems (ILS), and micro­wave landing systems (MLS). The Global Positioning System (GPS) is operated by the Department of Defense, and Loran C is operated by the United States Coast Guard.

In 2003, the FA A inaugurated the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) as a precursor for a new and extremely accurate navigation system. WAAS augments, or enhances, the Global Posi­tioning System in order to provide the additional accuracy, integrity, and availability necessary for its use by the civilian aviation community. Previ­ously, GPS data were unable to provide naviga­tion capability for use in precision approaches. Through WAAS, precision approaches are con­ceivable for all 5,400 public use airports in the United States without local airport ground sup­port facilities.

WAAS is an integral part of the FAA plan to replace ground-based Navaids entirely with satellite-based navigation capability, thus elimi­nating VORs, VORTACs, ILS, and MLS. (See Chapter 35 for the Next Generation Air Trans­portation System plan.)

National Airports

The FAA no longer is responsible for the two major airports located in and near Washington, D. C., Reagan National and Dulles, since their operation has been assigned to the Washington Metropolitan Airport Authority.

Under CAB regulations, air cargo was allowed to be carried by certificated carriers in the belly of any type of aircraft and over any route for which the carrier had passenger authority. As of 1978, more than half of all cargo still moved in the bellies of passenger aircraft. No “all-cargo” commercial car­riers appeared on the scene at all until after World War II. In the 1970s, there were only a few all­cargo certificated carriers, including Flying Tiger and Seaboard World Airlines, and only one air taxi cargo operator. The air taxi was Federal Express, and it had been allowed entry into the cargo field by using the CAB exemption for small airplanes— under 12,500 pounds. Once a cargo plane landed, it was limited to a delivery radius of 25 miles by ICC regulation. The CAB set cargo prices and did not allow higher prices for faster transport.

In June 1976, John Robson proposed to Congress that cargo be treated separately from passenger operations and, going beyond what either Kennedy or Ford had authorized, sug­gested that air cargo be completely freed of regulatory control. At the time, the pending air­line deregulation bill applied to both passenger and cargo carriage, but the main problem with advancing the legislation lay with the passenger side of the legislation. This was due to powerful interest groups on the passenger side who were opposing airline deregulation vociferously. On the cargo side, there were no such interest groups working against the bill; in fact, most all of the interested parties supported complete deregula­tion of air cargo. This was the opening that John Robson saw and was the reason for his proposal to split the legislation and seek full deregulation for air cargo.

Federal Express and Flying Tiger represen­tatives worked closely with Congressional com­mittees to separate the passenger legislation from the cargo legislation, and on October 20, 1977, the cargo bill was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter. By this statute, the cargo carriers were free to use aircraft of any size, to fly them wherever they chose, and to set rates that were justified by market conditions.

The share price for Federal Express on the day of the passage of this law in October was $9.16. By December, it had catapulted to $34.75. Share prices for Flying Tiger also rose. Federal Express began acquiring large jet aircraft, up to seven times larger than those permitted during regulation. Total shipments increased by 38 per­cent in 1978. Overnight shipping was born, with pricing based in part on speed. In the world of air cargo and on the New York Stock Exchange, the name “FedEx” took on new meaning.

The deregulation of cargo also created opportunities for companies engaged solely in surface transportation. In 1981, United Parcel Service (also known as UPS) entered the over­night air delivery business and is today one of the largest cargo airlines in the country. It is an interesting fact that labor relations between UPS management and its employees are governed by the National Labor Relations Act, while FedEx is subject to the Railway Labor Act. This seem­ing contradiction is, of course, due to the fact that UPS was subject to the NLRA from its inception as the American Messenger Company in 1907.

The success of the air cargo carriers due to deregulation was a positive sign for air passen­ger deregulation. Arguments that chaos would follow deregulation of the air carrier industry were to some degree muted by the success of the air cargo carrier experience, but not everybody agreed. [11] [12]