To “carry the mail” is an idiom often used to describe working diligently and efficiently in the execution of an important task or duty, especially in demanding or high-pressure situations. This certainly described the “Can-Do” spirit of Bob Prescott and the new employees of the Flying Tiger Line during the first decade of operation and their uphill battle to secure the airline’s first lucrative air mail contract in 1955.
The concept of transporting mail by air was envisioned long before the common carriage of passengers. In fact, it can be argued that the United States Post Office Department created the nation’s commercial aviation industry. From 1918 to 1927, the Post Office Department built and operated the nation’s airmail service, establishing routes, testing aircraft and training pilots. When the Department turned the service over to private contractors in 1927, the system was a point of national pride.
The Department’s assistance did not end in 1927. Early passenger traffic was almost non-existent. Mail contracts provided a financial base that encouraged the growth of the nation’s fledgling commercial aviation system. Companies used those funds to purchase larger and safer airplanes, which encouraged passenger traffic.
A Brief History of Air Mail
The first recorded use of an air vehicle to deliver mail occurred on January 7, 1785, when Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries delivered a letter across the English Channel to France on a hot air balloon. Later, in 1793, Blanchard would deliver by balloon a letter from President George Washington launched from Philadelphia to Deptford Township, New Jersey, which is considered the first instance of airmail in the United States.
Another full century would pass before the Wright brother’s famous manned flights in 1903. Since the historic invention of the airplane, long before passenger service was established, the concept of using airplanes to transport mail had been imagined. In 1919, a bill to authorize the Postmaster General to investigate the feasibility of “an aeroplane or airship mail route” was introduced in Congress, but quickly died in committee as a fanciful dream. However, that dream began to take shape over the next decade, and in 1917 Congress finally appropriated $100,000 to establish experimental airmail service during the next fiscal year. In 1918, the Postal Office Department, as it was formally known then, began bidding for airplanes to create its own fleet dedicated to the mail runs. This plan was quickly cancelled after conferring with the Army Signal Corps, who suggested lending its pilots and six Curtiss JN-4H “Jennys” to the effort in order to give its pilots more cross country flying. On May 15, 1918, the Department began scheduled airmail service between New York and Washington, D.C.
However, in August later that year, the Department went back to their original plans and took over all phases of airmail service, using newly hired civilian pilots and mechanics, and six specially built mail planes from the Standard Aircraft Corporation. The new operation was relatively short lived once again due to the large amount of mishaps and logistical problems encountered by the government agency.
Enter The Commercial Carriers
The growth and success that newly developed passenger carriers were experiencing did not go unnoticed. In 1925, Congress authorized the Postmaster General to contract for airmail service, inviting bids from commercial airlines and aviation companies. The first “contracted” commercial airmail flight in the United States occurred on February 15, 1926, and by the end of 1926, eleven out of twelve contracted airmail routes were operating using commercial carriers. The Airmail Act of 1930 further provided for subsidy compensation to carriers based on carrying capacity, versus mail that was actually carried, and continued the Postmaster General’s authority to grant 10-year exclusive rights to the most successful carriers. Such airmail contracts breathed much needed life into the nation’s fledgling commercial aviation industry.
In 1947, two year after The Flying Tiger Line was founded, the President’s Air Coordinating Committee published it’s report on United States aviation policy. As a result of this report an effort was made to bolster the nation’s aviation industry in the interest of national security. The committee directected Congress to enact legislation that would move all first class mail and parcel post by air. While cargo carriers such as Flying Tigers were not eligible to carry airmail or parcel post under Government contract, it was generally assumed that once legislation was enacted, the non-scheduled air cargo companies might be eligible. Little did Prescott and the Board of Flying Tigers know about what an uphill battle that eligibility would be to attain.
Enter the Flying Tiger Line
In 1952 an application was filed with the Civil Aeronautics Board for authority to carry air express and air mail, including air parcel post, on a non-subsidy basis, and at rates materially below those paid by the Post Office Department for the carriage of mail on passenger aircraft. Tiger’s contention was that lower cost air service could be provided to the Post Office by utilizing, in addition to passenger planes with their attendant higher costs, air cargo planes at their lower cost levels.
In 1953, Prescott’s ideas finally got the attention of The Post Office Department which announced that it would initiate an experiment of carrying first-class mail between Chicago and New York and Washington at airfreight levels on a space-available basis, in addition to the carriage of air mail on expedited schedules for the higher airmail rates. Both Flying Tigers and Slick Airways applied to the Post Office and to the Civil Aeronautics Board to participate in the experiment.
As noted by Bob Prescott in the 1953 Annual Report: “This Post Office business, treated as freight on a non-subsidy basis, has long been advocated by the Company. The savings to the Post Office will be very substantial. The service to the country will be vastly improved. And cargo carriers will be able to move the traffic, new to the air, profitably.“
In 1955 there were two other noteworthy developments. First, the Flying Tigers had begun to carry the mail on a very limited basis. Secondly, the renewal and amendment of Route 100 Certificate was pending before the Civil Aeronautics Board.
On May 2,1955 the Flying Tiger Line, along with two other all-cargo carriers, Slick Airways and Riddle Airlines, was granted an exemption by the Civil Aeronautics Board to participate in the mail-by-air experiment space-available basis at being conducted by the Post Office. Mail was permitted to be carried by FTL on a space-available basis on it’s New York-Chicago route. It was hoped that if the experiment proved successful it would be expanded country wide over it’s existing Route 100 authority. FTL’s participation at this early stage was not great enough to be economically important to the company. What was very important was that Tigers had been given some recognition by the Civil Aeronautics Board as a potential mail carrier and as an integral part of the air transport industry of the United States.
The Flying Tiger Line, which pioneered efforts to open the door to mail carriage by U.S. air freight carriers, received its first load of mail on Monday night, August 1 1955, nearly nine years after it asked the government for mail rights. The carrier received 856 pounds of first class mail from the Chicago post office for New York, which it dispatched on its midnight flight arriving at Newark at 5:41am.
In 1956 there was a very important addition added during the renewal of the FTL’s Air Freight Certificate over Route 100. The recertification gave FTL the right to carry air mail between all authorized points in its existing airfreight system. This authorization was given for a period of one year and contained clauses which automatically terminated the authorization if the company should apply for subsidy under the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938.
In 1957 authority for the carriage of air mail, was renewed and the Flying Tiger Line continued from then on with annual grants for postal contracts within the United States, and eventually to international destinations. In fact, during the Vietnam War era of the 60’s, the airline was heavily involved in transporting mail for the USPS. One observer noted, “Nobody brings in mail like those Tiger birds”.
Alas, Nothing Lasts Forever
Tigers went on to lucratively “carry the mail” until deregulation of the air cargo industry in 1977, when new entrants such as UPS were able to cut into the market share. The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 further ended the US government’s control over airfares and airline routes, significantly influencing the air cargo industry and effectively ending the coveted Air Mail system developed so many years earlier.