A New Beginning

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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

FIGURE 18-1 The DC-4 became available to the domestic fleet in 1946.

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.

(Selected Years) No. of Engines 1940 No. Av. Mi. Planes Pet – Day 1945 No. Av. Mi. Planes Per Day 1948 1/ No. Av. Mi. Planes Per Day *1949 1/ No. Av. Mi. Planes Per Day Beechcraft 2 — — 0.8 66 6.5 219 — — Boeing 247-D 2 34.9 468 — — 0.8 800 — — SA-307B 4 3.1 1,354 3.6 2,094 5.0 1,326 5.0 1,306 377 4 — — — — — — 7.0 306 Consolidated-Vultee Convair 2 9.3 907 92.0 834 Douglas DC-2 2 42.2 715 — — — — — — DC-3 2 145.2 1,198 314.4 1,756 429.2 1,194 404.0 898 DST 2 38.6 1,569 — — — — — — DC-4 4 — — — — 155.0 1,317 158.0 947 DC-6 4 — — — — 46.3 1,825 104.0 1,626 Lockheed Electra 2 33.8 58.3 1.3 727 — — — — Lodestar 2 4.4 661 17.7 1,545 12.0 258 11.0 909 Constelation 4 — — — – 30.9 1,828 51.0 1,688 Sikorsky 2 6.0 203 2.0 184 — — — — Stinson Single Motor 1 — — 10.9 404 7.0 439 — — Tri-motored 3 2.0 109 4.0 61 — — — — Martin 202 2 — — — — 15.4 843 24.0 1,107 Curtiss 46 2 — — — — 2.0 73 2.0 129 *l/includes local service and territorial lines. 1949 data for 10 months only. FIGURE 18-3 General aircraft utilization, domestic airlines.

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.