MATS v. the Private Lines

Biggest airline in the world is the U.S. Air Force's Military Air Transport Service. It is also one of the most controversial. In fiscal 1959 MATS will spend more than half of its $535 million budget to operate 533 transport planes, many of them flying cargo and passengers in direct competition with commercial U.S. carriers. Last week a MATS plan to add ten new Douglas DC-8 jets to its fleet at a cost of $66 million ran into a turbulent stream of industry, Administration and congressional opposition. Complained Pennsylvania's Democratic Congressman Daniel Flood of the House Appropriations Committee : "Congress has got to stop MATS from competing with private business."

Even such severe critics as Flood agree that MATS is a vital part of the U.S. defense network, readily recall how MATS, under William H. Tunner, then a major general and deputy commander for operations, performed with dramatic efficiency during the Berlin airlift, and in 1956 brought 6,409 Hungarian refugees to the U.S. in a matter of days. Their chief fear is that MATS, now commanded by Lieut. General Tunner. is getting farther and farther away from its combat-carrying function as it steps up military passenger and cargo business, which under established Government policy should go to commercial carriers. The airlines worry that jet passenger transports will be but the first step in converting MATS' $1.2 billion fleet of aircraft into a $3 billion jet operation that will take away even more commercial business. Pan American World Airways is postponing its decision to buy new cargo jets until it finds out whether it must compete against a MATS jet fleet.

480 Stewardesses. For fiscal 1959, MATS was directed by Congress to spend a minimum of $80 million on contracts to commercial carriers but actually spent only $69 million, 11% of its total budget. Hardest hit by MATS' competitive policy are the small all-cargo airlines, who depend on Government business, are part of the emergency air reserve counted on by the Government for war. Says William Gelfand, contract administrator for the Flying Tiger Line: "We don't say it is MATS' responsibility to keep any of us in business. But if the military is going to compete with the carriers, it must assume responsibility for the business the carriers are thus deprived of."

MATS' passenger traffic nearly doubled, to 786,841 last year from 440,359 in 1954, and its freight tonnage increased to 249,881 tons last year from 75,173 tons in 1954. On its growing passenger runs, MATS uses 480 Air Force enlisted women as stewardesses, boasts that it flies its military passengers between New York and London at a cost of only $100 while commercial economy-class rates are $257. MATS figures only actual costs of oil, gasoline, etc., does not include the cost of planes and operation.

Needed: Combat Efficiency. Deepest concern about MATS is that while it is growing more competitive against U.S. airlines in the passenger and freight field, it is losing out in the race to develop new planes and techniques for hauling war materials. Of its 533 aircraft, only 144 are equipped as heavy troop carriers. MATS has only one type of turboprop, the long-range (4,000 miles), comparatively slow (311 m.p.h.) Douglas C-133, while MATS' Russian counterpart has at least three different types of newer, faster (400-500 m.p.h.) turboprop transports and one pure jet already flying.

Seeking a way to keep MATS more combat-ready and the airlines happier, Oklahoma's Democratic Senator A. S. Mike Monroney, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Aviation, has proposed a compromise. Behind the Monroney proposal in tight formation are the Federal Aviation Agency, the Civil Aeronautics Board and the commercial carriers. The proposal: a deal whereby MATS will get its ten jet passenger transports and Congress will promise to underwrite the cost of developing a new turboprop cargo plane such as the Lockheed Super Hercules, which could meet both MATS' and commercial requirements, bring the airlines' cost of hauling down from 8-c--10-c- a ton-mile to 5-c- a ton-mile or less.

At week's end agreement on the plan was well in sight. In return for its new jet wings, MATS almost certainly will have to agree to shift more of its noncombat cargo and passenger business to commercial carriers.

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