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THE AIR CARGO NEWS THOUGHT LEADER  

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     The USAAF leased a single C-82A to United Airlines Inc.from September 27, 1946 to October 8th, 1946. It was to test the concept behind the 5 cent airmail stamp where mail could be sorted, processed and bagged while in flight for immediate delivery after landing, hence speeding delivery times and reducing costs.
     Fairchild performed the interior modifications to the aircraft which was brand new off the production line in Hagerstown where it was christened as the Flying Mail Car with civil registration NC8855.
     The cargohold was fitted with everything required for processing large quantities of mail. Up to six tons of mail could be carried on a 500 mile route or up to four tons on a 1,200 mile route.
     The inaugural flight on October 1, 1946 carried up to 13 personnel and took off from LaGuardia Field, New York westbound to California along U.S. Air Mail Route No. 1. With onboard staff sorting the mail along the way, the trip was completed in 12 hours.      Although the concept seemed like a great idea, it held little practical value and was discontinued after making only a few trips.
     The aircraft was returned to the USAAF in mid October 1946 for continued military service. It's ultimate fate is unknown.

n my preceding article entitled The Founding Forties, I devoted the space to a streamlined overview of the earliest forces that wove the fabric of a brand new industry—air cargo.
Hard on its heels is this piece, the first in a series of articles that will encompass the pre-jet era dating from the budding industry’s beginnings in 1945 to the ensuing decade-and-a-half.
     What was the general attitude of the scheduled airlines toward their cargo business? What were the current conditions of competition and marketing? Were the IATA-authorized cargo agents and CAB-authorized air freight forwarders making satisfactory inroads in cargo sales? How did shippers make creative use of air transport? What were the challenges encountered by cargo handlers at the airport and within the aircraft? What were some of the views of air freight’s analysts?
     It is not the intention of this series to include my personal views on various issues; rather, it will reflect the views, pro and con and in the middle, from professionals and industry specialists at that time. Forecasting can be a tricky business.
     With the return of peace in 1945, the two dozen U.S. domestic and international airlines, sensitive to the surge of the so-called GI air carriers, turned their attention to freight, as distinct from their express service.
     Credit Air Express International (AEI) for being America’s (and possibly the world’s) first forwarding company wholly devoted to air transport. The route to this development revealed a bit of a twist in history: Opportunity knocked at the door of 24-year old Chester Mayer, (right) a New York customs broker, when Pan American Airways which handled its own import clearances, found itself entangled in a serious customs problem. This led to a decision by Pan Am to farm out its customs clearances to an independent customs specialist. The offer was made to Mayer, and almost overnight AEI came into existence in Miami.
     The time was the nadir of a cheerless Depression—but the remembered counsel by some old Roman whose name he could not recall was to “let nothing pass that will advantage you.” Eventually AEI edged into shipping small packages by air via airplane, flying boat and even zeppelin. These shipments supplemented surfaceborne traffic.
     All-air was Chester Mayer’s close-held dream. It was fated to come true.
     The war was barely over when Col. L. H. Brittin, director, Edward S. Evans Transportation Research, proposed that the CAB “encourage the development” of air cargo by allowing ICC-authorized consolidators to utilize the services of air cargo carriers. Col. Brittin’s conclusion was based on interviews with New York area forwarders who represented about one-third of the nation’s 100 certificated ICC freight forwarders.
     Why did surface forwarders shy away from air cargo? Among the reasons reported were (a) lack of interest by the CAB in considering applications by ICC forwarders; (b) lack of understanding of freight as against small-package express product; (c) the need for fewer promises and more action; (d) rates are uneconomical.
     Meanwhile, in the nation’s capital, the CAB reported word of IATA’s long-awaited decision on brokerage rates for interested parties, which must win CAB approval. The rate of commission in the sale of scheduled international transportation of air freight and air freightexpress, including extra sections, was set at 5%; for the carriage in a charter aircraft, not more than 2 1/2% of the charter rate.
     Pleased by the IATA decision on brokerage rates for forwarders and agents, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce nevertheless took action to set up eastbound transcontinental air freight activity. It authorized a study of products potentially suitable for airlift to the East Coast’s principal markets.

     Slick Airways, which cooperated with the Chamber in its study, of potentials, but speaking independently prior to the project’s completion, emphasized that hard economics and not the phenomenon of glamorous air delivery, would provide the answer.

     Assistant vice president-sales at the cargo airline, J. Prescott Blount warned against overblown traffic forecasts, noting that “enthusiasts outside the air freight business sometimes go overboard in claiming that this new medium of transportation is about to revolutionize packaging and marketing in the United States. Nothing could be farther from the truth.” Airlift, he added, should be seen as a “superspeed express service”— actually a “tiny fraction” of the total market (produce).
     Irving B. Babcock’s words and tone were moderate, although they reflected promise. Chairman of Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corp., he did not regard air cargo as a substitute for surface transport. He described air cargo as “a new form of transport that opens up wholly new possibilities and therefore brings entirely new meanings into our world.”
     It was World War II that brought “the truth home to us—a preview” of what is starting to take place. What we learned in the years of armed conflict about air transport is gradually becoming “the foundation of many routine operations.”
     Gen. Harold R. Harris, (left)vice president-general manager, American Overseas Airlines, set an example for aggressive enthusiasm. Declaring that what he will say is with “complete conviction and without any possibility of challenge,” he maintained that any article that be passed through the aircraft’s doorway either complete or in sections and not too heavy for the plane’s ability to carry it, “not only will be, but has been, carried by air under some circumstance in the world—not as a stunt, but as an economic delivery.”
     What kinds of products was the airline executive talking about? He ran off a list of commodities: heavy machinery, sheet metal, barbed wire, window glass—structural articles normally associated with air cargo. These have been flown at a profit to both shipper and airplane operator. It is useful to remind the reader that Gen. Harris delivered his remarks only months after the war.
     Britain’s former attaché in Washington, Peter Masefield, (right) took a long look at air cargo, was impressed by what he saw, and borrowed from Kipling to remark that we are “at the opening verse of the opening page of a chapter of endless opportunities.” He suggested that the old expression “trade follows the flag” is being displaced by “trade follows the air route.”
     In a similar vein, but closer to home, Charles H. Babb, well-known aviation industry executive, saw the immediate future as a time when, “many long-cherished plans for highway and rail construction will be abandoned in favor of air transportation.” Mind you, this was uttered just a few months after the Japanese put down their arms.
     This was a time when an infant air cargo industry was first getting off the ground. But maritime interests were already acutely alive to potential competition (although in a few instances its members publicly derided air cargo’s future impact). A number of steamship lines filed in Washington for rights in the field of air transportation.

     A prime example was Waterman Airlines, a creature of Waterman Steamship Lines. Its air authority was confined to scheduled service within a single state in sharp contrast to the seven seas in which the parent company’s ships sailed. Arguing to break out of its limited air authority, Waterman sought international routes; it told a resistant CAB that the American Merchant Marine was “on the very threshold of world leadership” or against a “hopelessly losing battle with foreign competitors deep in the use of modern air and sea technology.” Waterman stressed the high value of sea-air integration for U.S. business. It held that superior service in international trade is provided when “ship and plane are under one management.”
     A sea-air future? The scheduled airlines didn’t see it that way. The Air Transport Association was in flat opposition to ownership and operation of planes by steamship companies. The ATA’s general counsel, Stuart E. Tipton, (right) declared “there always are those who want to move in on a good thing when the heartbreak of early experimentation and the years of progress in the developmental stages have been passed.” He denied that airlines and ship lines are “parallel modes of transportation.”
     The air cargo industry is still in swaddling clothes. But it was already recognized as America’s fastest growing business. At TWA, R.E. Whitmer, cargo sales head, referred to air freight activity as a magic carpet to world trade. Modern shippers no longer thought in terms of distance but in terms of time. He urged creation of a “common basis for the customs requirements of various countries.” In support he cited the case of 1,200 copies of forms covering only 200 pounds of freight aboard the flight.
     The mouthpiece of the nonscheduled carriers, the Independent Airfreight Association, waxed enthusiastic over the rapid growth of its member carriers’ overseas tonnage, which volume included Puerto Rico and Cuba).
     InterAmerican air freight was jumping. Door-to-door air deliveries to South American cities were 5-7 days as against seven weeks by surface.
     Girding for postwar competition, America’s domestic and international scheduled airlines, intent on adding clout to air freight service performance, organized a shippers research unit. It aimed to serve as “a clearing house for technical information and to cooperate in the development of regulations for hazardous materials and packaging methods.

     Dr. John B. Crane, president of Transportation Analysts, Inc. discussing foreign trade in the postwar era, asserted the importance of separate treatment of passenger and cargo traffic. He saw all-cargo aircraft in regular international service by no later than 1955.
     How deeply will air freight penetrate America’s foreign trade? No more than a fraction of 1% by the mid-Fifties. He suggested that products with a value of 25¢ to 50¢ per pound made excellent candidates for air export.
     Returning to the domestic scene, Fairchild Aircraft’s Jerry Martin, a market analyst, adopted the position that no place exists for both national and regional air freight carriers in the air freight industry, just as there is a place for both the certificated carriers and nonscheduled and contract carriers. The urgent need, however, was for the development of complete nationwide air freight systems.
     Pinpointing speed as the “essence “ of air freight service, Martin held that the sacrifice of speed is to be avoided as a sacrifice of payload. Each mile saved was of “prime importance” in air freight system development.
     Marketing people and promoters were quick to turn to the implementation of air cargo to reach their objectives. In some cases, it was dogged effort to carry out nationwide distribution of promotion materials in harmony with a tight schedule; on other occasions it was ordinary products bearing labels which distinguished them as airborne—snob appeal of sorts.
     The Mexico City department store, Salinas Rocha, received over 90% of the goods on its counters from the United States and some domestic sources by air freight. The arrangement was based on an economic decision of smaller purchases and more frequent reorders.
     And there was the DC-3 cargoplane outfitted as a showroom for products of American manufacturers. The exhibits-laden aircraft in the service of Trans Caribbean Air Cargo Lines flew to major cities in South and Central America. Aboard were salesmen fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.
     Trans Caribbean was able to come with a plane custom tailored to a specific purpose. Fairchild Aircraft was able to come up with a design for a flying mail transport. This was the Packet Mailcar. A modified version of the squared Packet freighter adapted to the requirements of the U.S. Post Office. The Mailcar’s interior included a sorting table, letter rack, locked drawers for registered air mail, and bag racks. On nonstop flights, the Mailcar was placed at six tons; on 200-mile hops, four tons.

     The news from Boeing was spectacularly different: It offered the Stratofreighter, patterned after the military C-47 and designed for rapid loading.

     Declaring himself in the corner of gradualism, H. Struve Hensel, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, argued against hasty government regulation. He counseled regulators to make certain that regulation was fashioned from knowledge and not sprung full and panoplied from human brains trying in vain to predetermine the coming world. In Hensel’s opinion, “economic regulation will not be possible until either the Civil Aeronautics Act is amended to include contract carriers or air freight enters the field of common carriage.”
     In this first of a series of articles that will take the reader to bowing in of the jet, professional comment of the future of air freight is largely positive. But there are also voices that warn that the future, though sought, is not free of intermediate challenges. It’s like the Chinese proverb that overstatement is like painting a snake with legs.
     However, no matter how you look at it at this point in air cargo history, the signs have an upward tilt.
Richard Malkin
malkin101@aircargonews.com

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