Trippe Bats One

In Manhattan last week Juan Terry Trippe, president of Pan American Airways, made a significant speech; in London Viscount Edward George William Tyrwhitt Knollys (rhymes with moles), Governor of Bermuda, got a big new job.

The two news items were closely linked. Mr. Trippe warmly advocated that the U.S. should aid British postwar commercial aviation. World War I Flyer Knollys became chairman of British Overseas Airways Corp. in a Government-sponsored reorganization designed to make Britain a major factor in postwar aviation.

The same thing that hurried the British into action worried Juan Trippe into speechmaking: military strategy has concentrated British plane production on fighters, while the U.S. has been building (and flying) practically all of the transport planes. Thus the U.S. will have all the planes and most of the know-how to dominate the international airways when war ends. This fact is one basis of the hullabaloo about "freedom of the air." War pushed other U.S. airlines into international aviation, under contract to the U.S. Army. But Pan Am, as the only U.S. airline that flew the world under its own contracts before the war, is the line that frightens the British most.

Juan Trippe addressed himself directly to this fear last week. Said he to the National Institute of Social Sciences (where he had just received his umpteenth gold medal for "distinguished achievement"): "If you want to win a baseball game, you try to outhit the other fellow but you don't take away his bat. ... I urge that when the fighting stops British Overseas Airways be permitted to secure--on equitable terms--all the ocean transport planes that are needed to restore the balance for fair competition." He also gave a glimpse of the size of Pan Am's postwar baseball bat, revealed that for more than a year Pan Am has planned "50 giant clippers, each capable of carrying 153 passengers from New York to London in ten hours at a fare of $100." Britons could take some comfort in Skycoon Trippe's insistence that they be given planes for the crucial conversion period when most new transports will still be on the drawing boards.

Pan Am's Poser. U.S. commercial airmen went on brooding. A heated domestic battle over which and how many U.S. lines will be allowed to share the postwar world skies has been simmering for months. In this melee Juan Trippe maintained his invariable public silence, his invariable private views: whether or not the U.S. has more than one international airline is up to the Government; but: 1) Pan Am has shown itself more than able to do all the peacetime world flying the U.S. has done up to now; 2) every other nation that has tried multiple international airlines has found them wanting. Airmen also know that, since war has admitted competitors into Pan Am's bailiwick, Mr. Trippe has become so concerned about his postwar world that he has even suggested that the U.S. Government take a minority interest in Pan Am's stock.

For such reasons, dopesters thought that Juan Trippe's generous concern for Britain was suspect. They saw it as a shrewd move to reinforce Pan Am as the one & only U.S. international airline after the war. The British are already committed to the single-line policy (British Overseas Airways Corp. is a Government outfit), and want London to be headquarters for all European air traffic. Trippe, in scratching B.O.A.C.'s back, should get his back scratched in return in postwar deals for landing rights anywhere in the world where the British have influence. And control of world air bases is the big area in which the U.S. will be weak and Britain strong.

U.S. Government air experts are largely in favor of more competition for Pan Am after the war. But when it comes to the actual negotiations for bases and franchises, a Pan Am-B.O.A.C. pressure bloc could do a lot to change their minds.

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