North American Airlines Group

It was a rogue airline, lucrative for the four partners who controlled it, bigger and more profitable than some of the smaller trunk carriers of the day yet operating in open circumvention of the law.

In 1955, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), the now-defunct Federal agency that, at the time, tightly regulated almost all US commercial air transport, revoked the group's right to operate.

During the time North American operated, CAB regulation limited irregular carriers in their ability to offer scheduled service.

Jack B. Lewin and Ross R. Hart were partners in Burbank-based Aero-Van Express Corporation[5] (incorporated in California on 18 February 1946).

[6] Separately, Harry Ljung incorporated Viking Air Transport, based at Glendale, California, on 23 January 1946.

[11] Weiss was a former Air Transport Command pilot who flew the Hump, Fischgrund was a lawyer who served as a US Navy officer on a destroyer escort, Hart was a former Douglas Aircraft Company employee and Lewin served in the Army Air Forces Technical Training Command.

For each company this meant revocation of the letter of registration that the CAB issued to irregular air carriers in lieu of a certificate.

[21] However, the CAB was already onto Oxnard and shut it for willful and knowing violations as of March 6, 1951, giving it only a week's notice versus 30 days in the case of Standard and Viking.

Fischgrund said in Congressional testimony the group started in 1949,[24] though his partner Weiss said 1950;[25] as mentioned above, Oxnard sold tickets under the North American name in 1950.

As discussed below, by design the partners did not own the airlines, nor have official management roles, but they tightly controlled them nonetheless.

The carriers were: From March 1952, Twentieth Century Air Lines was renamed North American Airlines, but the CAB fought that for reasons described in the Name change section below.

[26] After the group lost its trademark case in 1956, the name seems to have reverted to Twentieth Century Airlines (rather than Air Lines).

[38] Three main sets of books were kept: the ticket agency, the back office entity and Twentieth Century Air Lines.

[43] The group structure was an attempt to obey at least some part of the letter of the law while frustrating its purpose, including: North American was highly profitable by comparison with CAB-regulated airlines.

The CAB set fares nationally for all scheduled carriers under its control at a constant amount per mile, regardless of distance (see nearby graph).

"[63] The group said it was "first in aircoach"[64] and credited itself with development of air coach (what we know today as economy class) in late 1945,[65] which was clearly reaching back to the Standard/Viking days.

[67] North American said it was the first to create space for people to bring carry-on bags, to give coach passenger free meals and make various innovations in passenger handling helped speed people through the airports, including an airstair modification for the DC-3 (see picture) which they referred to as a "drop down door".

[68] Also, the partners were able to afford brand-new fast, pressurized DC-6B aircraft, giving the group equipment on par with the certificated carriers.

For instance, in 1956 Congressional testimony the head of the ATA said: "... North American group has done nothing for air transportation; nothing.

[71] The Federal appeals court ruling against the group described North American Aviation's virtues at length, referred to the ticket-selling organization as nothing more than a "ticket drummer", of knowing full well it was taking advantage of the good name of the aircraft manufacturer, noted that California had refused to register the name "North American" due to obvious confusion and said the group's hands were "unclean".

It was for this reason the CAB also refused to use the name "North American Airlines" for the carrier previously known as Twentieth Century Air Lines.

The group hired Murray Chotiner to lobby on its behalf, leading to North American becoming part of a 1956 influence peddling scandal in the Eisenhower Administration.

In 1958, it was revealed that Eisenhower's powerful chief of staff, Sherman Adams, had assisted Chotiner with the CAB, making it an even bigger deal.

The group's lawyer, testifying, objected to the chart as "childish", something "you would see in a psychiatrist's office" and "perfectly ridiculous", but then, only a moment or two later, conceded it was "essentially accurate.

The CAB answered the question of why the group was so complex by saying that in part it was to evade and circumvent the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938.

The CAB revoked North American's right to operate on 1 July 1955, the culmination of an investigation lasting over two years.

Anticipating the end, in March 1957 Trans American pre-emptively leased its then five DC-6B aircraft, plus two others on order, to Eastern Air Lines starting in May.

Another said that giving Trans American a certificate would have been like awarding a liquor license to a bootlegger after Prohibition on the grounds of having proved his efficiency.