Clipper, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, April 1961

              LITTLE LEAGUERS START PRACTICE . . . Page 8
CLIPPER
LATIN
AMERICAN
DIVISION
JET INAUGURAL PICTURES
. Pages 4, 5, 6, 7
VOL XVIII, No. 3
MIAMI, FLORIDA, APRIL 1961
610403
ExaminerNods At Pan Am for Mexico Route
Airline Proposes To Use Jets on Mexico City Run
Pan American has been recommended by a Civil Aeronautic Board examiner to be awarded a Florida-Mexico City route with a mandatory stop at Merida, Mexico.
The recommendation by Examiner William J. Madden denied the competing applications of National and Eastern Air Lines.
Madden said he recommended Pan American because the airline has been operating between Miami and Merida for 30 years and because it intends to use jet equipment on the route as opposed to the other airlines’ proposals to use DC-7s and turbo-prop Electras.
Route Includes Tampa
The route involves service from both Miami and Tampa, Florida, into Mexico.
Previously, the Bureau of Air Operations of CAB recommended that Pan Am alone be authorized to operate the new route. In a brief to the examiner in the CAB proceedings, J. P. McKinnon, bureau counsel, said that since Pan American already has a Miami-Merida route, it need only add Tampa and extend flights to Mexico City to provide the service.
Pan American’s existing routes in the Caribbean and Central America linked with the proposed new route between Miami and Tampa and Merida, Mexico, and Mexico City would permit the fullest possible enhancement of tourism and trade in those areas, the airline pointed out.
Offers 5 Weekly Flights
The pioneer U. S. flag international airline has proposed five weekly flights between Miami, Merida and Mexico City, and one flight weekly between Tampa and Mexico. The Tampa Mexico flights will be increased “as fast as the market indicates need or ability to support expanded service,” Pan Am officials added.
Pan American pointed out that if it is awarded the route no traffic will be diverted from the other two applicants. However if one of the other applicants is given the route it will drain hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue from Pan American.
Novel4Game * to Assign Seats During Strike Keeps San Juan Clipper Passengers Happy
How do you turn several hundred disgruntled passengers into an amused throng that waits patiently to be assigned a limited number of Clipper seats?
The ingenuity of Pan American’s Station Traffic Manager Jack Fernandez, at San Juan, Puerto Rico, during the recent illegal strike of flight engineers, produced the answer.
With curtailment of Pan Am flights and cancellation of all flights from San Juan by all other airlines, Fernandez anticipated a heavy backlog of passengers on the waiting list for space available. He recognized that the manner in which these passengers were handled could be a potential source of trouble with inevitable claims of favoritism.
Numbers Are Assigned
To avoid this. Fernandez instituted a system whereby every ticket holder was given a waiting list number, a duplicate being retained at the waiting list counter.
Space on the few departing flights was exceedingly limited, being confined to no-shows and last minute cancellations. So, when persons holding confirmed space had been checked in a few minutes before departure time, the number of seats remaining available — sometimes two or three and never more than a half dozen — were checked. Then Fernandez would call out the numbers in numerical order from his duplicate list and the persons holding them got the seats.
Turns Into Game
Quickly the anticipated ordeal turned into a game. The holders of the lucky numbers started shouting “Bingo!” The mood of the crowd changed from surly complaining to one of amusement. Grumpy passengers, sensing the honesty of the arrangement, caught the spirit of the throng and began to laugh, hoping their number would come up next.
So successful was the plan that there was not a single complaint of favoritism.
Fernandez and ten assistants remained on dutv almost continuously until the strike ended. Many passengers, at first inclined to be critical, later complimented the airline and Fernandez on the way a difficult problem was handled.
Moreover, the April 3 issue of Life Magazine, “En Español,” carried a spread, with pictures, describing the novel plan.
HOLD EVERYTHING!" Jack Fernandez (left foreground), station traffic manager in San Juan, tells impatient passengers. "I gotta plan for you-all to get seat assignments that will give everyone an equal chance/
"WE'LL DRAW NUMBERS." So the crowd, their travel plans upset by the engineers' strike, listens to the "game" Fernandez proposes. Note unhappy look on the faces of the guys and dolls in the two top photos.

"BINGO!"—One passenger (center at counter) hits the jackpot as his number is called, while the others get the spirit of the deal and join in the laughter. Take a look at the smiles on their faces in bottom photo.
Trippe Thanks Loyal Co-emps
Strike Cost Employes $1,150,000 in Lost Wages
TO ALL PAN AMERICAN EMPLOYES: A time of challenge, hardship, and financial burden to all was sustained by the Company and its employes during the recent strike involving six major airlines.
For the first time since it was founded 33 years ago, Pan American was forced to furlough large numbers of its personnel. Fifteen thousand employes were dropped, with great reluctance, from the payroll for a three-day period. Those essential personnel who remained on duty took drastic pay reductions. All officers continued on duty without pay; other management personnel took pay cuts from 25 to 50 per cent.
These measures were necessary for the Company to maintain its financial stability at a time when nearly all income was cut off. They were necessary as part of Pan American’s corporate responsibility to its stockholders and to you, its employes.
For those remaining on duty during the strike—from mail-room personnel to executives—it was a matter of long hours and hard work to keep vital functions of the Company in operation. Many furloughed employes asked if they could continue on duty without pay. Nearly all expressed an understanding of the Company’s position.
The strike was costly to the Company and meant a $1,150,-000 payroll loss to you. But, it did help all of us to appreciate qualities of loyalty and dedication to duty in our fellow employes which we tend to overlook in the press of everyday routine.
To each of you, I express Pan American’s thanks and appreciation. Sincerely,

Voting Machines Flown to Trinidad
First country outside the North American continent to use voting machines and the first in the world to be 100 per cent equipped with the electronic safeguards is Trinidad and Tobago.
Guarded as carefully as though they were solid gold, 108 voting machines of a total order of 1,000 were flown to Port of Spain for the forthcoming election about September 25.
John E. Probst, Pan American’s Port of Spain director, rode the cargo Clipper south on the 1,615 mile nonstop journey. Other security officers met the shipment on arrival in Port of Spain.
Two representatives of the Shoup Voting Machine Corporation, Canton, Ohio, were in Port of Spain when the shipments arrived. A service technician will remain several weeks, training classes of election custodians and teaching the public how to use the machines.
Shoup officials said that at present there is no country in the world where voting machines are used in all precints. The machines are not used at all in European and Asiatic countries. At the next election, they said, all of Trinidad-Tobago’s votes will be cast through the machines.
All-Jet Operation To Puerto Rico
Pan American World Airways will begin an all-jet operation between New York and Puerto Rico on April 30.
The giant airlift will provide 62 nonstop jet flights each week between New York and San Juan. Thirty of the jet flights will be Thrift fare flights. These flights offer the most economical jet fare anywhere in the world.
8 Inaugurals Take Jets to Major Cities
Crowds and Guests Greet New Service With Enthusiasm
Jet Clipper inaugural flights— eight of them—were scattered over the Latin American map on a recent weekend by Pan American.
Four major downline cities that had never before had a jet aircraft on their airports welcomed Pan Am’s DC-8 jet Clippers on the same day, with big crowds, and in some cases bands and speeches and walk-through visits by top-ranking dignitaries. The four are Bridgetown, Barbados; Georgetown, British Guiana; Willemstad, Curacao; and Merida, Mexico.
Another important Pan Am gateway to Latin America, New Orleans, welcomed the first Pan Am jet Clipper on its airport the same day, with appropriate fanfare.
Newsmen on Inaugurals
A dozen important travel writers and editors took part in two of the inaugurals and remained to research travel feature stories that will appear later in their publications. The eight new jet flights, all operated with 600-mile-an-hour DC-8 Clippers, follow:
Flights 219 and 220. On Saturdays 219 leaves New York for Paramaribo, Surinam, with en-route stops at San Juan, Barbados, Trinidad and British Guiana. It returns with the same stops on Sundays as Flight 220.
Flights 229 and 230. Saturdays southbound departs New York for Curacao, with a stop at Ciudad Trujillo. It, too, returns on Sunday, as Flight 230.
Flights 503 and 504 operate between Miami and Guatemala. South bound, 503 is nonstop on Mondays and makes a stop at Merida on Saturdays. Merida is a stop on the Tuesday 504 flight from Guatemala, but the Sunday flights are nonstop.
Raven Is Host
Flights 505 and 506 operate between New Orleans and Guatemala, northbound on Saturdays and Mondays and southbound on Sundays and Tuesdays. Merida is a regular stop both ways.
Division Manager William F. Raven, of LAD, was official host on the inaugural flight from New York to Paramaribo. In addition to other Pan American officials including S. Roger Wolin, Division public relations manager, the passenger list included newswriters representing the New York World Telegram, Denver Post, Miami Herald, NEA Syndicate, New York Times and the McGraw Hill publications.
The press group remained three days in Surinam and French Guiana, spent another three in Trini-Continued on Page 3
Airline Plans Low Jet Fares To South America in May
Pan American will introduce new low economy class jet fares to South America on May 15, providing a reduction of $335 from the present roundtrip tourist class fare between New York and Buenos Aires.
The economy fares, subject to approval by the governments concerned, will be effective for two years. They were agreed upon by the members of the International Air Transport Association meeting in Bermuda following a preliminary agreement made by IATA members at Cannes in October 1960.
The agreements made at Ber-
muda will provide for the first time stabilized fares between North and South America, said Wilbur L. Morrison, executive vice president in charge of the Latin American Division. He pointed out that the new low fares are in accord with Pan Am’s long standing efforts to bring order out of chaos in this area by establishing sound economic fares.
In addition to the reduction in fares between North and South America, the Bermuda meeting also agreed on lower fares from the United States and Canada to the Bahamas, the Caribbean and Bermuda.
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