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As air travel numbers experienced major growth in the early 1950s, American Airlines was the first out of the gate with an announcement that it would begin nonstop transcontinental services between New York and Los Angeles once it had taken delivery of its Douglas DC-7 propliners. Eager to upstage American Airlines and its iconic head, C.R. Smith, Howard Hughes had TWA launch its own transcontinental nonstop service on the same route using its new Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellations. On 19 October 1953, Trans World Airlines' "Ambassador Service" Flight 2 departed Los Angeles for New York Idlewild and just barely got into New York under the federal eight hour crew limit at 7 hours, 55 minutes. The westbound Ambassador Service flight had to deal with prevailing winds at altitude and thus couldn't make the flight nonstop within 8 hours- a 15 minute technical stop was scheduled enroute at Chicago Midway to allow for a crew change but no local passenger traffic.
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Although TWA had reached an agreement with its Super Constellation pilots for overtime pay on the westbound nonstops to eliminate the technical stop for a crew change in Chicago, no such agreement existed with American and following deadlocked negotiations, American's pilots striked on 31 July 1954. C.R. Smith was furious but had no choice to accept an agreement for overtime pay on the westbound Mercury nonstops that exceeded 8 hours. After a punishing 24-day strike, American's pilots returned to work under new rules for transcontinental flights in excess of 8 hours.
Arriving late to the transcontinental battle was United Air Lines. United took delivery of its DC-7s six months after American Airlines but didn't inaugurate nonstop services until 1 June 1954 on it's "Red Carpet" services between San Francisco and New York Idlewild. United's nonstops were eastbound only and rather unusually, westbound nonstops weren't added by the airline until 1955, nearly a year later after the Red Carpet services started.
It should be noted, though, that although these services were operated by Lockheed Super Constellations and Douglas DC-7s, on 3 February 1948 TWA inadvertently operated the first eastbound nonstop when TWA Flight 12, operated by a Lockheed L-049 Constellation, had its regular stops in Kansas City and Chicago Midway canceled due to winter weather and the flight had to continue on to New York, arriving after covering 2,470 miles in 6 hours, 55 minutes.
Source: From Props to Jets: Commercial Aviation's Transition to the Jet Age 1952-1962
Very interesting history--but just wanted to let you know that neither American or United operated DC-7Cs. They had standard DC-7s. (The DC-7C was somewhat longer and had a wider wingspan.)
ReplyDeleteAmerican and United operated standard DC-7Cs, not DC-7Cs.
ReplyDeleteCollett and Edna, thanks for the comments and the corrections, I've edited my posting to reflect your contribution.
ReplyDeleteI'm a little confused about the dates in your article. I had a neighbor in the 1970's who was on American Airlines "Inaugural Flight Washington to Los Angeles" on July 1, 1954, on "The nonstop DC-7 Statesman”. Her son was an officer in the navy (Commander?) and he was given tickets for this flight; he gave them to his mother. She said the flight was filled with senators, congressmen, military officers and two little old ladies - her (Bess Bradley) and her friend. They gave her a beautiful museum-framed and matted certificate signed by the pilot - B. C. Moore. I have the certificate. It was given to me by her family when she died in 1978 at age 93.
ReplyDeleteIf your still flying in cyberspace, Thank You, I enjoyed your story. Mark
ReplyDelete