Busy United

First complete figures on how a domestic airline can make out with half its planes in the Army were revealed last week by United Air Lines. With only 33 planes v. 65 a year ago, July passenger-miles dipped a mere 17% from July 1941. Meanwhile United hauled 191% more air express, 90% more air mail.

To do this bang-up job, United increased flying time per airplane, speeded up all turnarounds, reshuffled schedules, converted a dozen-odd twelve-passenger sleepers into regular 21-passenger transports. In the past six months the company's over-all "load factor" (i.e., percentage of carrying capacity used on all flights) has jumped about 20 points to a record 85%. On the important San Francisco-Portland run it is averaging an unprecedented 96 to 100%.

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