Small-Town Big-Timer

By Humboldt Bay in northern California lies Arcata, the "world's foggiest airport." Arcata is "socked in" by rain or fog so often (97 days a year) that the U.S. armed forces have made it a base for their all-weather flying experiments, equipped the field with blind landing instruments (both G.C.A. and I.L.S.) and Fido (fog-dispersing oil burners). Through the soup over Arcata one day last December, a Southwest Airways DC-3 made the world's first blind landing with all three systems on a scheduled commercial run. Since then, Southwest, a ten-plane "feeder" line between 24 California and Oregon small towns, has made 1,200 routine instrument landings at Arcata.

By such pioneering, Southwest, in its 22 months of existence, has become the second biggest U.S. feeder airline. Last week, while almost all airlines were having money troubles, Southwest announced that it had flown past a significant milestone ; it completed its first quarter in the black, netting $47,118.

Thunderbird's Egg. Southwest's majority owners, ex-Test Pilot John H. Connelly, 48, president, and Cinemagent & Play Producer Leland Hayward, board chairman, hatched the airline from their wartime partnership in the Thunderbird cadet flying schools (TIME, June 9, 1941) and their wartime cargo line across the Pacific. At war's end, with $2,000,000 in capital and the backing of such Hollywood bigwigs as Jimmy Stewart, Brian Aherne and Darryl Zanuck, they got a three-year experimental charter from CAB for their West Coast feeder service.

Their notion was that it was small towns, not big towns, that needed air service the most. Airline oldtimers scoffed. There was not enough traffic in the small burgs, they said. Besides, on short hauls (Southwest's shortest hop is 22 miles, its longest only 115) planes would waste so much time on the ground that they would not be much faster than trains or buses. Southwest sped up its ground operations until now a DC-3 can discharge passengers, load new ones, and take off again only 90 seconds after it taxis to a stop (six extra minutes if it has to refuel). Southwest has trimmed the time by such tricks as keeping one engine running, dropping open a door which also serves as a staircase.

By plugging trips from small towns into nearby cities for shopping, entertainment and business, Southwest has drummed up impressive payloads. In Crescent City, Calif, (pop. 1,800), Southwest turned up 318 passengers in September, the first month it stopped there.

Sick Fledgling. Nevertheless, it took stern measures on President Connelly's part to put Southwest in the black. Like most fledglings, Southwest started out top-heavy with vice presidents, quickly lost money. When Jim Ray, the first boss, quit, Jack Connelly moved in with a meat-ax. He trimmed out most of the top brass, made the survivors double in it. Southwest's only remaining vice president, Operations Chief Ted Mitchell, flies 25 hours a month as a pilot and all pilots refuel their own planes.

Connelly serves no food ("let them bring their own"), provides no chewing gum ("we never fly high enough to need it and besides it sticks to the floor") or magazines ("takes too long to unwrap them"). By such economies he has trimmed Southwest's costs from $1.14 per revenue mile to 96-c- (the break-even point) and into the black at its present 88.63-c-.

Since much of the route has no radio beacons, Southwest planes often navigate by turning their radio compasses on local radio stations which cheerfully break their commercial programs to identify themselves. And since many of the passengers have never flown before, Southwest's crews are invariably polite, no matter how silly the question. One elderly lady was puzzled by the wing lights. When the pilot told her they were navigation lights, she nodded happily: "Oh, I see. All you have to do is steer between them and you're safe."

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