North American Airlines Agency

  January 1950 to April 1957

  United States of America

TYPE: Non-scheduled airline

IATA/ICAO CODES: Nil

HEADQUARTERS: Unknown

FORMER NAMES: Viking Air Lines & Standard Air Lines (merger)

OTHER NAMES: North American Airlines Agency (until 1956), Trans American Airlines (from 1956)

The North American Airlines Agency (NAA) resulted from the merger of Viking and Standard Air Lines, two non-scheduled operators, in the early 1950's. NAA went on to purchase other smaller non-skeds over the following years, including Twentieth Century Airlines, which kept operating under its own name.

NAA was famous for offering an on-demand - but quasi-scheduled - coast-to-coast service at discounted prices. The airplanes would not depart until enough seats were booked, but somehow passengers did not mind waiting an extra day to avoid paying $110 for coach or $159 for first class with regular scheduled airlines. Thus, NAA was able to operate at load factors in excess of 85% and maximize profit.

"The service was popular with the general public, if not with the route carriers, and in 1951 North American supplemented the old DC-3s with DC-4s which, though unpressurized, could offer ‘four-engined safety’ still beloved by airline propagandists, and, more important, could give the company extra seating capacity to cope with the rising demand.

"By 1953, North American was boldly applying to the C.A.B. for new routes, alongside the established carriers. For example, in the famous Denver Case, it proposed a Chicago—Kansas City—Denver—Los Angeles service at a flat 3c per mile, plus $2 per ticket, thus substantially under-cutting the competition. The C.A.B. took a dim view of the enfant terrible and found North American to be ‘unfit, unwilling, and unable’ to perform the services, because of ‘knowing and wilful violations of the Board’s Economic Regulations’.

"Unabashed, North American continued to prosper with its cheap fares policy, and continued to apply for new routes when the opportunity occurred. As for the violations, it steadily maintained that the C.A.B. had set the rules, and that, although the group had devised a scheme for stretching the provisions of the regulations, there was no evasion or breakage of the written letter of the regulation itself.

"In 1954, North American reported that it had carried 194,000 passengers over 329 million passenger-miles. This latter figure was in excess of that of any of the three smallest U.S. Domestic Trunk airlines, so that this quasi-irregular operation was beginning to reach considerable proportions and was no longer a negligible activity in the field of air transport generally. North American had enough confidence to acquire some new long-range DC-6Bs from Douglas.

"Starting on 5 April, 1955, the company made five trips from Travis Air Force Base to Tokyo, using DC-4s, which was some grudging recognition of its existence. To emphasize its continued competitiveness, in May 1955, it began nonstop transcontinental service, using 100-seat DC-6Bs, charging $88 one way.

"In July 1955, the C.A.B. revoked NAA’s various certificates because of ‘serious and wilful violations’ of its economic regulations and ordered it to cease its ‘unlawful operations’ effectively from 1 September. National Airlines’ R. A. Fitzgerald expressed the opinion of the scheduled industry by describing NAA as ‘professional violators’. Violators or not, North American had certainly started something. On 16 September, all the transcontinental route carriers introduced a special excursion round-trip fare at $160 which, however, was valid for only 30 days and available only on certain flights. Then, on 15 November 1955, the C.A.B. took a major step in clarifying its own mind by creating a new class of Supplemental Air Carriers.

"Deciding that to attack was a good means of defence, North American made the next move, on 15 November, by asking the C.A.B. for a three-year exemption, effective from April 1956, to operate low-cost transatlantic coach services, proposing two round-trip daily services at fares of $125 New York—Shannon, or $140 New York—London, i.e. 43% below the current tourist fares. NAA quoted its success in the U.S.A., pleading that, although its operating authority was revoked, an appeal was pending before the courts. Meanwhile it was continuing to operate, until a decision was made.

"It had every incentive to press on until all hope was lost. In 1955, NAA carried 272,000 passengers, 40 per cent more than in 1954, making a profit of $1,000,000 on $15,000,000 revenue. It noted that nearly all its clientéle were first-time air travellers, and that it was stealing traffic from the bus lines and railways, not from the airlines. This was sound reasoning, but the C.A.B. did not at that time consider it to be relevant, although it appeared to be the main case being launched against NAA.

"In January 1956, the C.A.B. turned down NAA’s application, on the grounds that the issues were too complicated to be decided by the exemption process. It also stated that ‘a very serious question remains unresolved’ as to NAA’s qualifications, in view of the fact that the airline ‘had been found guilty of violations and its operating authority revoked’. North American maintained that it had done nothing illegal but that the C.A.B. had been ‘hypnotised by its own science’. In February 1956, at the hearing of the House Commerce Transportation Sub-Committee, the chairman, Oren Harris (D. Arkansas) said ‘I am impressed by your objectives, but not with your methods’ and the point of legality was again obscured on 12 March when the C.A.B. used the phrase ‘calculated conspiracy’ in its charges against NAA.

"By this time, North American appears to have taken the view that its problems with Government agencies were so involved that there was nothing to be lost by intensifying the battle. On 30 April it applied for exemption to operate to Luxembourg, cutting North Atlantic fares by 50 per cent. This move invoked the wrath of the State Department, as well as the C.A.B., for conducting unilateral negotiations with a foreign power.

"Another of North American’s problems was its name. As one way of making life difficult, some of the trunk route carriers, notably American Airlines, charged that the use of North American should not be allowed; NAA changed its name to Trans American Airlines, and the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the use of the word ‘American’.

"The sands were running out for North American against massive opposition from the entire certificated industry, backed at this time by the Civil Aeronautics Board. In June 1956, the airline made a substantial concession by amending its exemption application, still pending, with an offer to discontinue the proposed service if the C.A.B. found that any competitor was injured thereby. It also agreed to charge ‘such rates as the Board found proper’. This put the Board in a delicate position. To quote Stan Weiss: ‘How could they say we should charge more when we were making money on what we were doing?’

"In spite of everything, the C.A.B. rejected the application in July 1956, and although North American’s lawyers used every device of legal procrastination, its filibuster eventually collapsed. After repeated stays of execution, the C.A.B. authorization finally ran out on 19 January 1957. This was confirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States on 23 April.

"North American, by then Trans American, leased its seven DC-6Bs to Eastern Air Lines. It was the last of the non-skeds to do substantial passenger business for a decade. But its impact on the course of air transport in the U.S.A. was considerable. Stan Weiss and his cohorts forced the authorities to review the basic purposes for which the C.A.B. regulations were drafted; and his influence on fares is indelibly cast on rate structures which still survived into the 1970s. That his contribution was significant is proved by the knowledge that, although North American and the $99 fare lasted only five years, no-one who was connected with the industry at the time has ever forgotten it; and many believe to this day that the company was never given full credit for its achievement in pioneering low fares that a new stratum of the public could afford."

Abstract from "Airlines of The United States Since 1914" by Davies, Ronald Edward George, 1982, Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institue Press, ISBN 9780874743814.

September 1950* to June 1954*

• Curtiss C-46E-1-CS Commando: N59483