Keeshin Air Freight?

The Civil Aeronautics Board, already choked with applications for new flying routes from U.S. airlines, last week disclosed that twelve land lines (truckers, bus operators and railroads) had also asked for permission to muscle into the airfreight business. The biggest: Chicago's fabulous Keeshin Freight Lines Inc.

Keeshin's tough-as-nails President John Louis Keeshin started out (in 1913) with one horse and wagon, wound up (in 1936) as the No. 1 U.S. trucker. By that time Jack Keeshin had the potent help of John Hertz, Lehman Bros, partner and Yellow Cab Co. founder, and of Hertz's tough right-hand man Daniel G. Arnstein (who later turned the Burma Road into an efficient supply line). John Hertz and "My Boy Danny" are no longer on Keeshin's board, but air-minded Lehman Corp. ''who also have a finger in both American Airlines and Pan American Airways) still own a big chunk of his company. Keeshin's grandiose postwar air-freight plan is to serve over 200 U.S. cities with five-to-eleven-ton transports and also to establish "gateway" service for foreign freight runs in 18 air "ports," from New York to Seattle, and from Minneapolis to Miami and New Orleans.

Aviation dopesters believe that CAB is about to break its application log jam so that civilian air transport can get off to a fast start after the war. One tip came last week, when CAB permitted three airlines (United, TWA and Eastern) to establish new routes to Washington as soon as the Army would let them have some more planes. But for land operators like Keeshin, the going may be tougher: during its five years of existence CAB has not allowed other common carriers to own any airlines.

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