Dirty Fight

Attended by an array of Senators, Representatives and high-priced legal eagles, seven U.S. airlines appeared before the Civil Aeronautics Board last week and proceeded to knee, butt and gouge each other like dead-end kids battling for a prize. They were in fact battling for a prize, the New York-to-Miami run, estimated to be worth up to $5.5 million annually to the line that gets it. The run has long been the possession of Eastern and National. Last April, a CAB examiner recommended that in the "public interest" a third carrier (he recommended Delta) be added. There is no doubt that a third carrier is badly needed; even in the offseason, as at present, travelers must often wait two or three days to get seats.

Last week, as CAB opened hearings on the recommendation, platoons of politicians pleaded with the CAB for the line that had promised most to the local folk. Maine's Senator Frederick Payne, representing the dozen New England Senators, spoke for his area's Northeast Airlines; New York championed Pan American World Airways; so did Maryland's Senator J. Glenn Beall. since Pan Am has promised to revive Baltimore's Friendship International Airport, if certified. Florida's ex-Governor Fuller Warren "begged for five minutes." spoke ten, predicted that "hundreds of Eastern's Miami employees" would be out of work if a new carrier was added to the route. He gestured feelingly at two rows filled with silent, blue-shirted Eastern employees, who had come up to the hearings on their own hook (according to the pressagents) to ' protect their jobs.

Next the attorneys took over, but instead of the usual amenities, threats and accusations filled the air. Pan American's Henry Friendly accused Eastern and National of making "exorbitant profits" by supplying "inadequate service," argued that Pan Am's own subsidy could be cut $8,000,000 if it got the route. Eastern and National charged Pan Am with carrying on a "tremendous lobbying campaign," using its officers, from President Juan Trippe on down, to pressure Government officials into making "informal and off-the-record" approaches to the CAB on Pan Am's behalf. They denounced Pan Am's "misrepresentations" to Baltimore and Boston about what it would do for those cities if it got the route, insisted that Pan Am has no equipment "immediately available" for the Boston-Miami run. Turning on Northeast, National and Eastern alleged that it is improperly controlled by Howard Hughes, chief stockholder of TWA, through his 11% interest in the Atlas Corp., owner of Northeast. (Hughes fired off a statement denying the implications of the charge without denying the facts: "I own stock of Atlas Corp. as an investor, but I have no desire to take part in the management.")

By week's end it seemed probable that a third carrier would be certified to the New York-Miami run, but who it might be was more than ever obscured by the mud.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.