The Airlines Join Up

Into the Army went the biggest, most important draftee yet--the entire U.S. air-transport system. The Presidential order gave the Army control of 19 privately owned airlines, some 275 sleek transports, millions of dollars' worth of vital aircraft parts, hangars and machinery, and 24,000 skilled workers (including 2,500 badly needed pilots, 5,900 crack mechanics and ground men). The Army did not take over the airlines to increase their efficiency--that has been tiptop for years. The reason was urgent need: Army air-freight and passenger traffic has priority on grounds of overwhelming volume alone. And more planes were needed to tote the load. Thus airline engineers and mechanics will soon start converting some 75 silver-sided transports into grim, olive-grey cargo planes. After the seats have been ripped out and husky floors and big doors or hatches installed, the ships will hop-skip all over the U.S. with ammunition, spare parts, engines, even big two-and-a-half-ton machine tools. All this will be done by the airlines.

Cost to the Army: $1 per year per airline plus expenses. The Army will also buy outright an-other 75-plus transports, to be pushed into regular Army service as fast as a coat of Army paint can be slapped on. In these ships Army bigwigs and Washington officials will fly all over the world, with no stops for airline tickets, favored passengers, or other peacetime doodads. All such flying must be strictly war business.

Stay Home. The public, as usual, will suffer. In April the Army requisitioned 25% of all U.S. transport planes. Now the service will take another 150 or so. This leaves only 100-plus planes for regular airline service--not enough to carry half of the 3-4,000,000 U.S. citizens who use the airlines yearly. President Roosevelt guessed that a lot of folks would either ride trains or stay home. The Civil Aeronautics Board is reshuffling all airline schedules, hopes to have a fresh set ready soon. Some details have leaked out: daily flights on the important New York-Washington beat may be slashed from 52 to 16; on the San Fran-cisco-Los Angeles run from 13 to eight; on many small "feeder" lines to none at all. Air mail also will get clipped; the Army this week was ominously silent when asked about rumors that much air mail will be grounded. The Cost. All this will cost the airlines a pretty penny. Last year they hauled 3,769,000 passengers, 19,210,000 pounds of express, tons and tons of mail--and earned $4,000,000 for the job. This year regular business will go to pot. The 19 U.S. airlines will be happy if they clear $1,000,000. But most airline officials this week were not complaining. Like most U.S. businessmen, they were willing to work and sacrifice to help the U.S. win the war. That attitude did not, however, prevent their being a little leary of Army control. They have reason aplenty. When the Army flew the air mail for three wild months in 1934, hourly operating costs skyrocketed from $100 to $255.50, per-mile costs jumped from 54-c- to $2.21. And the Army had 66 accidents, lost twelve pilots. But 1934's Army Air Force was more than eight years different from 1942's.

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