To Our Readers
     The series of articles, Pre-Jet Air Cargo, is a condensed history of the opening phase of the infant air cargo industry’s first generation—a period that is unfamiliar to most of the current crop of men and women comprising the industry. The text is based on a broad scope of authoritative sources—highlighting the more significant events, official actions, technical developments, and professional comment.

     The post war surge of airlines with war-surplus aircraft was a stirring symbol of the fast-unfolding Air Cargo Age. Three years later that symbol ballooned as the coordinated operations of U.S. commercial and USAF cargoplanes defied Russia’s blockade of Berlin to keep more than 2.5 million inhabitants alive.
     The Airlift is mentioned here because of its concurrence with the take-off of the air cargo industry; the operational exploits at what came to be known as Operation Vittles were vast and cannot properly be condensed for the purpose of this series. Trans-atlantic commercial aircraft were steady feeders to Air Force freighters at Rhein-Main Airport.
     Aiming a roundhouse at the freight-only air carriers, American Airlines Chairman C. R. Smith (left) rejected the claim of the all-cargo airlines that the uniqueness of air freight was in effect an industry all its own.
     Robert Prescott, (right) president of the Flying Tiger Line, came roaring back with the charge that the air freight potential had been lying before their eyes for long years, but they were sightless to the opportunity. The realities and lessons of the war suddenly handed them vision, and they wanted that business all to themselves.
     Holding a magnifying glass over the emotional squabble between supporters and opponents on contract and nonsked cargo airlines, H. J. De Gel, a transportation consultant, criticized the established carrier’s claim to prior rights as “selfish.”
     Langdon P. Marvin, Jr., who formerly served as chairman of the Interdepartmental Air Cargo Priorities Committee, was an ardent supporter of the concept of a Merchant Marine of the Air. A strong airfreighter fleet that would be useful to the domestic and international economies as well as a valuable asset in times of conflict. As an aside, Marvin pointed out that it took 5, 000 pounds of cargo to support a single soldier.
     At Pan Am, Willis G. Lipscomb, vice president – traffic and sales, made no mention of the proposed Merchant Marine of the Air, but his words added up to the same objective. The progress of air cargo could make a substantial contribution to world economic recovery and national defense. He was inclined to regard IATA’s cargo sales agent as the “keystone” in the arc of the nation’s air commerce. It’s a fact that air cargo’s great for the shipper and consignee, but—and you can’t get away from it—there is an urgency to go out and sell it.
     Arthur V. Norden, (left) however, found that reference to an aerial merchant marine was close to his own brand of thinking. Norden, executive vice president of Seaboard and Western Airlines, saw it as having the capacity to haul in overseas flight with crews adequately trained to deal with tons, rather than pounds, from loading to offloading. As a bit of added emphasis, Norden noted that combination aircraft were designed to fly passengers, mail, and small-parcel express.
     The results of an air cargo research study during the war years concluded that development of packaging for air transport was good; return on investment in publicity, excellent; consumer education and development of new business and a lively air cargo market since the war’s end, much to be desired. What course must be taken now? Suggested J. Prescott Blount, managing director of the Air Cargo Institute of California: The right way to go is a new, up-to-date air cargo research project funded by airlines and aircraft manufacturers.
     At about this time, four all-cargo nonskeds won a CAB examiner’s recommendation for certification: Flying Tiger Line, Slick Airways, California Eastern Airways, Willis Air Service, U.S. Airlines, and Airnews.
     Appalled by the nonexistence of a negotiable air waybill, A. M. Strong, vice president of the American National Bank and Trust Company of Chicago, maintained that the lack of such a document is injurious to U.S. foreign commerce. Delay in righting the situation was adversely affecting the nation’s air traffic as well as international trade, he warned. Strong expressed confidence that a negotiable air waybill can be devised, and which can satisfy existing needs of international air trade.
     Calling the Air Freight Forwarder Case “unique,” CAB Examiner J. Earl Cox said the Board was required to “determine whether freight forwarders should be permitted to function as indirect air carriers and so engage in air transportation, and adopt measures for regulating the incipient air freight forwarding industry, if authorized.”
     As the story goes, a sales executive at Air Express International returned directly to the AEI office after a lengthy transcontinental flight to find a TWX message waiting for him. The communication was from the company’s agent in Paris, and it was bilingual: “Rien ne reussit comme ce succes. Good luck.” The word from Paris couldn’t have taken a more indirect route. It was a cryptic reference to the CAB’s recognition of the air freight forwarder.
     By a majority vote, the CAB granted authority to air freight forwarders to operate as indirect air carriers for a period of five years—a temporary stretch of time during which the forwarders could gain the “essential experience” that would lead to permanent certification.
     But the forwarders’ whoops of joy and champagne quaffing turned out to be premature. With its scheduled airlines claiming substantial errors in law, they filed an appeal with the United States Circuit Court of appeals in Chicago. Result: a stay of the CAB order.
     Given the intensity of the certificated carriers’ appeal, the air forwarders were not surprised by the court’s stay, but they were not without loud sounds of frustration. At Skyways Freight Corporation, Vice President George K. Haney addressed a plea tobusiness reason. He maintained that the forwarder augmented the airline’s sales staff. The airlines, he went on to say, should hold out a hand of welcome to the forwarder because his added freight volumes produced greaterfreight revenue, every carrier’s No. 1 concern.
     A bit earlier, John C. Emery (right) offered his personal reasons why the certificated carriers opposed air forwarder certification: a fear that the forwarders would concentrate on directing their tonnage to the all-cargo airlines.
     With a sharp eye cocked on the rate of air freight progress, Louis W. Goodkind, assistant director (domestic) of the Civil Aeronautics Board, estimated that commercial air freight was just about edging out of the experimental stage and moving into the developmental stage.
     Parenthetically, he asserted that the CAB is charged with the development of a strong and “operationally safe air transportation system”—well-constructed, dependable public service; a system adapted to commercial and postal service needs, and requirements of the national defense.
     As part of the President’s Air Policy Commission’s recommendations for air cargo, it stated: “The soundest way to build up a pool of cargo planes for an emergency is to develop a cargoplane that can operate on a profitable basis. We are recommending the creation of an aircraft development corporation whose initial and primary task could be the development of an all-cargo transportation airplane. Such a plane, of course, would have to be useful to the military, but it should be designed primarily with a view to economic commercial operation.”
     On a triumphant note, the Port Authority of New York activated the world’s largest and most modern airport—Idlewild (now JFK)—serving the New York-New Jersey Port District. Six foreign flag airlines plus Seaboard and Western Airlines prepared to shift operations to the larger facility, from LaGuardia Airport.
     W. R. Rogers, an ex-vice president at Slick, urged standardization of airport rates because the charges paid “influences what (the airline) charges the shipper.” Furthermore, these rates should be “…fixed for a period of time,” allowing orderly ratemaking.
     Scheduled or nonscheduled, certificated or independent, the airlines were finding the task of stowing cargo a huge headache because of the lack of an airplane specifically designed primarily to fly freight. The DC-3 and DC-4, which currently dominated the airlanes, were designed for the passenger foremost in mind. The C-82 and C-97, engineered for cargo, were strictly for military operations. Specialists were hard put to develop better methods of stowing shipments of unequal size, shape, and weight in tubular-shaped passenger bellies.

     Was air cargo born as a result of the exigencies of World War II? Hardly, said Rear Admiral Lawrence B. Richardson (Ret.), now a vice president at Curtiss-Wright Corporation. Its roots as a business date back to late 1919, and nearly a decade later the development of air express was boosted by the switch of air mail to the scheduled airlines. However, development of air express business was feeble, reflecting the carriers’ view that it was but a minor add-on to its regular passenger and mail traffic business.
     With the explosive growth of freight, Adm. Richardson saw the potential of air freight business as “practically unlimited.” The ingenuity of man, he predicted, will bring superior operating equipment, and costs will inevitably slide downward, opening aerial paths to new markets. Turning to the needs of national defense, Adm. Richardson stated that 200 adaptable long-range airfreighters will be available to the military by 1950. He estimated an eventual all-cargo fleet of 750 aircraft.
     J.E. Winchester, sales engineer and coworker of Adm. Richardson at Curtiss-Wright, declared bluntly that lowered cargo rates and the airlift of greater varieties of commodities in greater volume were not possible at the present time. Current equipment was largely converted war-surplus planes originally designed to carry passengers. Transporting cargo in such aircraft was like eating peas with a knife, Winchester said.

 

    From Douglas Aircraft came word of the C-124, a military airfreighter two-and-a-half times bigger than the company’s DC-4. With a maximum load of 15 tons aboard, the plane could fly 1,200 miles and return. Normal range wass about 5,000 miles. The C-124 was an offshoot of the 124' 2" long C-74 Globemaster.
     Douglas had another message to deliver: it has decided to build a freighter version of the DC-6. It will have a capacity of 151/2 tons coast to coast. Direct loading/unloading will be accomplished by a built-in freightpower lift.
     Does the glider fit into air cargo’s future? Apparently the folks at the Chase Aircraft Corporation thought so, although commercial operators seemed less inclined to agree. The manufacturer’s all-metal XCG19A was 24-feet long and had a towing speed of 210 miles per hour. Its payload was four tons. The glider was under consideration by the Air Materiel Command.
     The newly organized Air Cargo Institute of California disclosed an ambitious agenda. It will carry out experimental shipments of agriculturals and manufactured products, from producer to consumer, with the findings made available to participating companies and organizations. Included in the Institute’s membership were major airlines, all-cargo carriers, Pacific Coast manufacturers, packaging materials and container producers, agricultural products manufacturers, farmer cooperatives, flower shippers, and representatives of various chambers of commerce.
     Synchronous with the leaping quarterly air freight totals during the latter half of the Forties were the loud bursts of enthusiasm emanating from airline cargo departments, leading to somewhat aggressive prophesizing. As man after man cheerfully predicted that air freight revenue would come abreast air passenger revenue in 10 or 15 or 20 years, Pan Am remained silent. The word from Pan Am was, in effect, “no comment.” Then one day as the calendar drew closer to the Fifties, the carrier’s cargo sales boss, John. W. G. Ogilvie, not without a prompter’s nudge, declared his belief that Pan Am’s cargo (including express) will equal passenger revenue “within a decade.” The passenger department was officially silent, but there were persistent reports of a profound collective smirk behind closed doors.
Richard Malkin
malkin101@aircargonews.com

Click Here To Read Intro
Click Here To Read Part I
Click Here To Read Part II

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