Winning Hand

When Newfoundland became Canada's tenth province 2 1/2^ months ago, U.S. airlines feared that things would be changed at Newfoundland's Gander airport. There, under the "Bermuda Agreement" with Great Britain (TIME, Feb. 11, 1946), the airlines had been able to: 1) refuel for their transatlantic flights, and 2) pick up and discharge passengers (traffic rights). The agreement ended when Newfoundland joined the Dominion, since Canada had never granted traffic privileges to U.S. lines. Thus she had a strong card to play for more air rights from the U.S.

Canada played her card well: she announced that traffic rights at Gander would be withdrawn June 30, but let it be understood that the status quo might be maintained if the U.S. came across with some new concessions. Last week, after a fortnight's negotiations, the U.S. State Department came across. Canada got: P: A new Montreal-New York route for the government-owned Trans-Canada Airlines, thus letting T.C.A. tap the richest U.S. traffic center and providing the first competition for Colonial Airlines on Colonial's most lucrative route. P: Traffic rights at Tampa and St. Petersburg, which will strengthen T.C.A.'s present Montreal-Nassau-Jamaica route. P: Traffic rights at Hawaii for Canadian Pacific's projected flights from Vancouver to Australia.

In return, besides the Gander rights U.S. airlines got several much less important routes into Canada. Some U.S. airmen were outraged. They complained that their lines had not been permitted to participate in the negotiations, although T.C.A. had. Colonial Airlines' fiery President Sigmund Janas, who has spent 19 years building up traffic on the New York-Montreal route, was the hardest hit. He charged that the agreement had been made at "unprecedented secret and concealed negotiations." Said he: "Nothing more shocking ever has occurred in international aviation diplomacy . . . valuable rights [have been] sold down the river."

Britons also had cause for worry; last week, facing Canada's same strong card, they too were negotiating to keep their traffic rights at Gander.

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