Flying Down to Rio

A huge four-engined Sunderland flying boat last week approached Buenos Aires from the east, lazily circled the city. Along the Plata estuary, 30,000 enthusiastic Portenos watched the plane land smoothly. Then out hopped the plane's proud owner and Pan American Airways' newest South American competitor, Argentine shipping tycoon Alberto Dodero.

Shipowner Dodero has long wanted to start his own airline connecting Buenos Aires and Montevideo and Asuncion (now connected by his ships). To do so, Dodero tried unsuccessfully to buy U.S. planes in 1943. In England last summer the reception was warmer. Dodero was royally wined & dined. He got the wholehearted blessing of BOAC, Pan Am's most determined foreign competitors. Dodero bought four of Short Brothers' Sunderlands. This week the U.S. helped also. It allotted Dodero two surplus DC-45. Eventually, Dodero plans to buy at least six more planes, fly to Europe in competition with a proposed Pan Am route.

Swarthy, round-faced Mr. Dodero has the cash to back his ambition. Montevideo-born, he went to Buenos Aires and, when he was 15, got a job with a river boat company. Fifteen years later, he bought the controlling interest in the line. In 1942, Dodero founded Compana Argentina de Navegacion Dodero, which now operates a fleet of 333 ships. Last year war cargoes brought Dodero's company 19 million pesos profit ($5,600,000).

There is one hitch in Dodero's plans; he still has no airline franchise. But to shrewd Mr. Dodero this is merely a matter of pulling the right political strings, a maneuver he knows well.

With Dodero's entry, the struggle for Latin American air traffic looked like an international free-for-all:

P: Aerovias Brasil, S.A. (TACA's Brazilian subsidiary) started flying in 1942 from the backlands of Brazil via Porto Nacional to Miami to haul rock crystal. With DC-35 acquired only four months ago, it now competes with Pan Am for passenger traffic between Rio de Janeiro and Miami.

P: Last month a converted British Lancaster bomber made a survey flight from London to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Peru. The British plan a regular commercial service on that route.

P: Air France plans to resume flights early in 1946 from France to Brazil and Argentina, using six-engined flying boats. Its survey plane, the Lionel de Marmier, last month crashed in Uruguay.

This potential competition in its most lucrative field might eventually hit Pan Am hard. But last week Pan Am was more worried about the North Atlantic.

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