Forced Landing

The Civil Aeronautics Board, which has often cautioned "irregular" airlines against becoming too regular, last week got tough. It ordered California's Standard Air Lines, one of the biggest irregulars, to stop flying by July 20. It also asked the Department of Justice to start criminal proceedings against Standard for willful violation of the Civil Aeronautics Act,*the first such action in CAB history.

Once before, the board had tried to suspend Standard's operations (TIME, Aug. 16), but the Court of Appeals threw out the ruling. CAB, said the court, would have to conduct hearings first. After six months of intermittent hearings, CAB was still of the same mind: Standard was too regular. It had told customers that it operated a daily flight from San Francisco to Chicago; it had conducted flights from Los Angeles to New York "on an average of all but two days of each week."

To hulking (6 ft. 3 1/2 in.), cocky President Stan Weiss, the decision seemed like a conspiracy between the major scheduled airlines and CAB to get rid of Standard and its profitable cut-rate air coach business. Cried he: "We're going to take those so & so's into the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and try to get a stay."

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