Free Air

AVIATION

The U.S., like a pilot in fog, is still groping toward a postwar air policy. To help find the American way in the air, the National Association of Manufacturers spoke up last week. It came out flatly for a postwar policy of: 1) freedom of the air; 2) free competition among U.S. international airlines.

By freedom of the air, the N.A.M. had in mind something like freedom of the seas--i.e., the "free air" would end at the borders of each country. Thus planes of all nations in international commerce would have equal landing rights in duly designated international airports, both in the U.S. and abroad. But plane travel between a nation's cities would be restricted to that nation's own planes. As a method of enforcing this, the N.A.M. suggested that lend-lease balances owed the U.S. be canceled progressively as long as debtor nations complied.

But to U.S. airmen, the stinger in the N.A.M. policy was not so much free air as free competition. On that latter point, the 19 U.S. airlines long ago split hotly. Against the 17 which have vociferously championed lots of international competition, Juan Trippe's Pan American Airways and William A. Patterson's United Air Lines have stoutly held out for the "chosen instrument" of one big Government-backed airline. In the N.A.M. the free-competition flyers found their strongest ally to date.

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