Comeback for National

AVIATION Comeback for National

In a walnut-paneled room in Washington, the Civil Aeronautics Board opened preliminary meetings last week to see if National Airlines, Inc. should be put out of business. The case for dismemberment was strong last year: hit by a ten months' strike and hurt by CAB's grounding of all DC-6s, National lost almost half its passenger traffic, turned in a $1,946,041 deficit in 1948. But last week, National's President George T. ("Ted") Baker was hardly acting like a man who expected to shut up shop. He announced that he would launch a new, luxury "Star" flight from New York to Miami this week, in all-out competition against Eddie Rickenbacker's Eastern Air Lines, Inc.

National's "Star" passengers will get the full red-carpet treatment, starting with a carpet on the loading ramp and recorded music at take-offs and landings. The specially decorated DC-6s will seat 56 people and will have a lounge (Eastern's smaller Constellations carry 60 passengers, some sitting three abreast), fresh flowers in the planes every day, and such features as hot hors d'oeuvres and linen napkins. Fares will be no higher than on other DC-6 flights.

While all this hoopla was an obvious attempt to highlight the austere handling Eastern gives its passengers, President Baker feels that it is also symbolic of the comeback of his airline. With his labor troubles settled, he has pulled his operating costs per revenue ton mile down to 36.44-c-, but according to CAB, they're still above Eastern. Although National wound up fiscal 1949 last June with a piddling $38,963 profit, it earned $866,000 in the last six months of that year, thanks partly to a big boost in mail pay over 1948. On the expectation of continued profits he is buying two new DC-6s and arranging for the lease of three more four-engined planes. When all are in service next year, National will have 14 four-engined aircraft in operation, competing with Rickenbacker's Constellations.

National is still a long way from a happy landing. But Baker hopes that by the time CAB gets around to final hearings on dissolving National, probably not until next year, National's comeback will have made the question academic.

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