Evening star., 1950-04-23

benevolent but sharp eye OF the c
Not until next year will the air
travel tour vacationer learn if the
current inducements again will be
available in 1851. BY then, rec
ords on all kinds of 1850 air travel
should be complete. The CAB
and airline operators then should
be able to determine what expert
mental promotional fares and
services now under test may be
permitted to continue under rea-
sonable limitations or whether all
or most of them should be elimi-
mated entirely.
The CAB presently is of the
opinion that the number OF types
of promotional fares should be re-
duced and Standardization should
be achieved on a few of the most
effective ones for the future. CAB
is presently supported by several
fiscal minded operators in this
type of thinking. They believe
that sharp reductions in fares for
long periods Cor even permanent
ly) might very we'll bring in the
customers, but when the books are
finally totaled, they might very
well also show a crying need for
even bigger Federal subsidy.
Different Approach.
But there are also other airline
operators, just as successful. COM
petent and sincere, who believe
lower air fares will lure more peo-
pie off the ground, step up the
airline business and reduce or
eliminate the subsidy now neces-
Sary to keep some routes in opera
ton in furtherance of Govern
ment policy pertaining to national
defense and economic advance of
air transportation.
This break for the 1850 vacation
traveller has been long in the
making. When the war and brief
postwar boom in airline travel
busted shortly after Labor Day,
1916, the diStraught airlines, ex-
perienced in providing only one
kind of service-f1rst class-wait-
ed hopefully. but in vain, for the
customers to return. Finally con-
cluding if the people would not
come to the airlines, they would
go to the people, they began to
take unprecedented (for them) |
steps to tap. capture and hold a
new market of air transport
patrons. Presumably, they did not
fly because they just couldn't af-
ford the mile flrst-class
service. luxurious and enticing
though it is.
BY the fall of 1948 the first of
several experimental promotional,
Introductory offers, including a
plan bearing a remarkable resem-
blance to that successful COM
modify of the drug and grocery
trade-the large family economy
package-began to appear. They
have since spread about the
scheduled airline system under
special. limited permits from the
CAB. The permits are revocable
If come-ons begin to gnaw away
at. and threaten to tear down,
the permanent rate structure of
the airline industry.
Tempting Opportunities.
These promotional plans now
can be viewed in full perspective
and evaluated for and applied to
the vacation weeks rapidly ap-
preaching for so many in the
Washington area, as elsewhere.
And that view presents tempting
opportunities to fly to Florida, the
Caribbean islands, Latin America,
the Western United States,
Hawaii and TO Europe.
Ticked-ofi on one hand, then,
are these five types of air travel
for nearly all types of pocket-
books, offered by the airlines and
travel bureaus to get you away
from the job at 200 to 300 miles
an hour.
FirSt-class, luxurious air travel
IN new, commodious, uncrowded
postwar airliners at 300 or more
miles an hour. on schedules geared
to the comfort and convenience of
the traveller with whom the g.
mile fare rate is not
primary problem.
They add up to time and money
saved, particularly to distant
points, and they now cause those
lCOnfinlled On Pare Ell Col IL