Flying Season

The air transport "season" opened last week. To be sure, the air lines operate on schedule the year 'round. But May i begins a six-month period of heavy passenger travel (just as it does for railroads and steamships). Also it marks the end of the bad weather months. March and April are the worst in the year for incompleted or canceled flights. From May to October the average of completed flights is highest.

Two great companies ushered in the flying season last week with important new schedules. Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc. swung from its transcontinental line at Columbus up to Chicago, making an eight-hour service between New York and Chicago to compete with National Air Transport (which flies via Cleveland). The Chicago-Columbus route was operated by Continental Airways, until that company went out of business last month. T. & W. A. swiftly grabbed up the strategic opening. (Errett Lobban Cord's new Century Airlines, radiating out of Chicago, was said to have turned a covetous eye upon the Columbus route.) The other new service was American Airways, Inc., between Cincinnati and Atlanta. Flying time is 4? hr., with stops at Louisville, Nashville, Chattanooga. Other strategic schedules, not so new, but of interest to the traveler who contemplates air transportation: Atlanta-Boston: Leave Atlanta 8 a.m. by Eastern Air Transport, for Newark Metropolitan Airport. Transfer there to American Airways (Colonial) to Boston, arriving 8 p.m. The southbound trip cannot be made in a single day from Boston, but from New York it can.

Chicago-Dallas: Leave 10:15 am. via National Air Transport, arrive Dallas 8 :18 p.m. Leave Dallas 9:30 a.m., arrive Chicago 6:25 p.m. Chicago-San Francisco (typical of three schedules): Leave 4:30 p.m. by Boeing Air Transport, arrive San Francisco (Oakland Municipal Airport) 1:18 p.m. next day. Leave San Francisco 12:45 p.m., arrive Chicago 11:09 a.m.-next day.

Seattle-San Diego: Leave 7 p.m. by Pacific Air Transport; arrive San Francisco 2:40 a.m., Los Angeles 6:35 a.m., San Diego 8:10 a.m. Return trip: Leave San Diego 10:15 p.m., arrive Los Angeles 11:30 p.m., San Francisco 3:30 a.m., Seattle n a.m. The season's opening was also marked by the climax of a sharp fight between Western Union and Postal Telegraph Co. for the exclusive rights to sell airline tickets at their branch offices. Last week Western Union had made contracts with 18 airlines, to Postal's ten. But Postal's list represented 57,000 mi. of airway to Western Union's 46,000.

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