Evening star., 1935-09-01
AIRMAIL ACTTO RESTORE
STABILITY TO AIR LINES
Measure of Confidence Now Returned
to Operators ECONOMY Claims of
Farley Held Dimmed.

the competitors revenue AND have the
effect of raising airmail costs to tine
Government, since the I. G. G. is now
empowered to revise rates paid the
operators on the basis of mandatory
yearly operating cost surveys and loss
of passenger and express traffic in
evitably would be reflected in the need
for more revenue from the Post Office
TEE rtment.
The amended airmail act freezes"
the off-line flying map as Of July l.,
1885, so that T. w. AS New York
Chicago service remains unaffected
except in so far as my contemplated
future pan-:on is concerned. The
status quo of various other similar
routes likewise is maint ined, but
this one is by far the most outstand-
ing example of the compromise solu-
ton arrived at in this troublesome
phase c American air transport.
Vengeance Clause" Persists.
The old vengeance clause" against
the operators who participated in the
so-called "spoils conference" with for
mer Postmaster General Walter F.
Brown, and thereby gave Mr.. Farley
his pretext for canceling their con-
tracts, still persists in the revamped
airmail act. If any of the present
operators cared to make a test case,
the wording of the law is such that
they could re-employ these blacklisted
officials merely on the latter's affi-
davits that they had not been guilty
of fraud and collusion" in obtaining
the old airmail contracts and it would
be up to Mr.. Farley to produce legal
proof to the contrary before he could
bar them and their employees from fly
ing the mail
But, for all Of the shift OF power
over the airmail operators from the
Post Office Department to the I. G. c.
in the new legislation, the lines still
remain very much at the mercy Of the
Postmaster General, and 1t Is un-
likely that any of them will risk his
displeasure by any such open defiance
of past Farley edicts, no matter how
high
Another humiliating passage for the
operators in the airmail act as now
constituted is the arbitrary require
ment that no airline official or en-
ploye may receive more than sl7,500
a year. They contend that this is class
legislation and that the Government
has no more right to cram it down
the aviation industry's throat unless it
is going to apply similar rule to high
officials Of railroads and steamship
lines. a substantial share of whose
revenue is derived from mail-carrying
contracts.
Obligation Clarified.
One constructive feature of the law
is that it empowers the Postmaster
General to authorize extra sections of
scheduled airmail flight when accu-
mulated mail exceeds the contract
maximum of SOC pounds averaged
over a month"; which an operator may
be required to carry under a strict in
depreciation of the law. Heretofore
the practice appears to have been for
the Post Once Department to tell the
hapless operator that he would carry
whatever legal poundage is determined
by the fact that the law provides 331s
cents mile as the maximum payment
for load of 300 pounds with a 10 per
cent increase in this base rate for each
additional 100 pounds of mail. but with
40 cents a mile set as the maximum
payment that may be made on any
scale.
In this connection, 1t Is worthy of
note in United Airlines' financial re-
port for the second quarter of this
year that, on the key routes of the
country the old axiom about the
majority Of an airline's revenue COM
ing from airmail contracts is now be-
ing reversed. The report shows that
United's income from passenger and
express traffic was nearly double its
Post Office Department backlog" Of
S742, ,634.41, the on-Government rev.
enue being $1,484, ,082.68.
This is all the more remarkable
when it is remembered that United is
one of the few lines actually sub
sidizing" the Post Office Department
by flying the mail for less than half
the Governments return on it in air.
mail postage. The profit thus made
by the Government on United Air
lines alone has been estimated as
81 100000 a year.
! (Copyrisht, 1935)