Celling Unlimited

Ceiling Unlimited

Not in years had the Civil Aeronautics Board been so pleased with the "young, vigorous and growing" U.S. airline industry. In a report to Congress last week, CAB noted that the onetime money-losing industry had climbed into the black in 1949 and that the future looked bright.

Within the next five to ten years, CAB predicted, the majority of U.S. travelers who make trips of 1,000 miles or more will go by air. "This [trend] is certainly true of first-class travel, and the trend is already apparent with respect to coach-class travel." CAB saw one dark spot ahead: Britain is well in front of the U.S. in the development of jet commercial planes. To catch up, CAB urged Congress at least to help finance the building of jet prototype planes by the U.S. aircraft industry. Failure to do so, warned CAB, might force the U.S. transocean lines "either to buy foreign aircraft or to yield traffic to the foreign carriers." --

The airline and aircraft industries backed up CAB with some good news of their own for stockholders last week: P: United Air Lines reported a $2.3 million profit for 1949, the first in three years. President William Allan Patterson said the better showing was due to record revenues (up 10%) and increased operating efficiency.

P: Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corp. reported a $3.7 million operating profit for fiscal 1949, its first since 1945. Reason: sales increased 75% last year to $197 million, thanks chiefly to 6-36 orders. Consolidated still has' a backlog of $207 million in Army & Navy orders. Cf Lockheed Aircraft Corp.'s production increased 35% during 1949, reported President Robert E. Gross, but greater output of small, lower-priced military planes pushed profits down 10% to $5.5 million. Nine-tenths of the 505 planes produced last year were jet-powered. At year's end, total backlog of orders was $229 million.

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