Round-the-World Express

The last big chunk of the world's unchartered airways--the trans-Pacific routes to the Orient--was finally portioned out last week by the Civil Aeronautics Board. Promptly approved by President Truman, the board's decision will permit air travelers for the first time to go around the world on one ticket.

On the beam of its antimonopolistic course in the North Atlantic, CAB turned down Pan American World Airways' bid to keep the whole Pacific to itself, followed the detailed advice of its examiners (TIME, Sept. 10) to split it up with Northwest Airlines, Inc. Biggest pieces:

P: Northwest will fly the great circle route from New York, Chicago and Seattle via Alaska to Tokyo, Shanghai, Manila and points in eastern China, and in Manchuria, Russia volente.

P: Pan Am will extend its present mid-Pacific routes: 1) from Manila to Saigon, Singapore and Batavia; 2) from Midway to Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong; and 3) from Hong Kong via Saigon, Bangkok and Rangoon to Calcutta, where it will connect with its North Atlantic route.

Pan Am, still lord of the South Pacific, will thus become the first airline to offer express service from the U.S. around the world* (probable price, around $2,000; time, four days or less). But even then it will have nothing exclusive. Reason: CAB also extended the North Atlantic route of Trans World Airline from Bombay to Shanghai. There T.W.A. will team up with Northwest to offer a joint one-ticket globe-girdling trip that is 2,000 miles shorter and more complete than Pan Am's. (Hustling to get the jump on their new rival, Northwest and T.W.A. announced that they plan to inaugurate the service within three months.)

For Pan Am, CAB included some kind words which said that passengers' fear of the cold, ice and snow of the north Pacific route and the lure of Hawaii as a way-point in the mid-Pacific route may well give Pan Am the advantage. What it mentioned scarcely at all is that the Northwest Passage will cut the flying distance from New York to the Orient by 1,000 miles. Northwest also will do most of its flying overland, where reassuring emergency bases can be built.

Considering Pan Am's big edge in established Pacific facilities, the competitive race of U.S. airlines around the world would be a close one, with no handicaps.

* The circuit will be incomplete because Pan Am has no trans-U.S. charter.

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