The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) was an agency of the federal government of the United States, formed in 1940 from a split of the Civil Aeronautics Authority[1] and abolished in 1985, that regulated aviation services (including scheduled passenger airline service[2]) and, until the establishment of the National Transportation Safety Board in 1967, conducted air accident investigations.

Unlike the FAA, which (renamed as the Federal Aviation Administration) became part of DOT in the 1966 Act, the CAB remained an independent government agency.

[21] The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) was established in 1967, taking over air accident investigation duties.

[21] In 1975, Senator Ted Kennedy, in his capacity as Chair of the Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, assisted by Stephen Breyer, then a counsel to the judiciary committee (and later a Supreme Court Justice), held widely-reported hearings on the CAB.

Under the chairmanship of John Robson, the Civil Aeronautics Board "in April 1976 did the unthinkable, becoming the first regulatory body to support deregulation," which President Gerald Ford first spurred in February 1975 with a proposal to abolish the CAB altogether.

[32] Robson was followed as CAB Chair by Cornell University professor Alfred E. Kahn, appointed by President Jimmy Carter.

[34][4][35] The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 specified that the CAB would eventually be disestablished — the first federal regulatory regime, since the 1930s, to be totally dismantled[35][34] — and this happened on January 1, 1985.

This was formalized in Part 298 of the Board's economic regulations, which in 1952 gave a blanket authorization for any airline operating an aircraft with a maximum gross takeoff weight of 12,500 lbs or less.

Zantop Air Transport was an example of such a company, flying aircraft on behalf of the US automakers on a private basis (before it acquired a supplemental certificate in 1962).

A prominent example of such a carrier was Zantop International Airlines (ZIA), which started in 1972 as a Part 121 commercial operator, uncertificated by the CAB.

In 1976, the CAB ended a long investigation by deciding ZIA was, in fact, not a common carrier (and thus did not require certification), going against the decision of its own administrative law judge.

[48] Ironically, this happened only a year before ZIA separately applied for and received certification as a supplemental air carrier.

[46] Air travel clubs were membership organizations, nominally private, that had their own aircraft and ran trips for members.

In 1968, the FAA instituted Part 123 of the Federal Aviation Regulations under which air travel clubs had their own operational requirements.

[51] Voyager, which had a fleet comprising a Boeing 720, two Lockheed Electras and some piston aircraft and its own terminal at Indianapolis Airport, unsuccessfully appealed to the federal courts.

[54] Notwithstanding these enforcement actions, in November 1979 (within the first year of deregulation) there were still 11 air travel clubs operationally regulated under Part 123, though by May 1980 it had dropped to seven.

These airlines sprang into existence, over 150 of them, at the end of World War II, using a loophole that was meant to be used by small businesses, like fixed base operators, to offer occasional small-aircraft charters without needing to get CAB approval.

Most of them failed to survive the regulated era, as the table below shows, unlike the scheduled carriers, which generally had the support of the CAB.

However, as shown in the table below, in 1978, just prior to deregulation, the largest local service carrier Allegheny (soon to rename itself USAir) was still smaller in revenue terms than the smallest trunk, National, and basic operating statistics show the local service carriers as flying distinctly less capacity, smaller aircraft and shorter routes than the trunks.

[69] Other CAB domestic categories included intra-Alaskan, Hawaiian, helicopter, regional, air taxi, and cargo.

Tiny Alaskan back-country carriers like Munz Northern and Kodiak-Western were subject to the same kind of proceedings as huge airlines like United and American.

1975 certification proceedings for Munz Northern were memorialized in 32 pages of CAB reports, encompassing the deliberations of the (usually five but in this case four) member CAB board itself, plus the earlier deliberations of an administrative law judge in front of whom six people appeared, representing Munz and two other interested parties.