Clipper, Vol. XVI, No. 5, May 1959

              Inaugural Rites Mark New Tegucigalpa Service
FIRST LADY of Honduras, Señora Dona Alejan-	CLIPPER HONDURAS arriving at Toncontin Airport, Tegucigalpa, where	WREATH IS PLACED on statue of Hondu-
drine Bermudez de Villeda Morales, christens	a ceremony was staged celebrating the beginning of new, direct service	ran hero, by Manager Edwin Drescher,
Clipper inaugurating new service to Honduras.	to the Central American republic from Miami, New Orleans gateways.	left, and Luis Marichal, DTSM, Honduras.
CUSTOMER SERVICE AWARD WINNER
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CLIPPER
LATIN AMERICAN DIVISION
MEET PAN AMERICAN'S LITTLE LEAGUERS
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VOL XVI, NO. 5
MIAMI, FLORIDA, MAY 1959
590518
Vast Jet Cargo Program Planned: Trippe
Clippers Fly Direct Route To Honduras
First Lady Joins In Ceremonies at Toncontin Airport
The President of Honduras, the First Lady and a host of other celebrities joined an official group of visitors in helping Pan American auspiciously inaugurate service to Tegucigalpa from Miami and New Orleans.
Improved, direct flights to the Honduran capital from the two U. S. gateways come in the thirtieth year of uninterrupted Pan American service that began on February 4, 1929, when Charles A. Lindbergh brought a Pan Am S-38 amphibian skimming into the harbor at Tela to link Honduras with the United States and neighboring republics in Central America.
Ceremonies At Airport
The new service provides for six flights weekly to and from Miami and New Orleans.
The inaugural flight from Miami April 27 carried 17 newspaper and television men and women and Pan Am officials headed by Division Manager Edwin Drescher.
Ceremonies began as soon as the flight arrived. The Honorable Juan Milla Bermudez, minister of communications and public works, welcomed the group while spectators listened from the terminal balcony. Drescher and S. Roger Wolin, public relations manager, Miami, responded, declaring there could be no doubt of the mutual advantage of the new schedule to the fields of tourism and public service.
Dona Señora Alejandrina Villeda Morales, First Lady of Honduras, poured waters from the Miami, Mississippi and Choluteca rivers
Continued on page 5
Beach Ready for Skiiers
Speed PARC Improvements As Club Membership Mounts
Satisfatory progress has been made during the last month on improving the facilities of the Panair Recreational Club.
Mid-May finds the parking lot area, now 500 by 190
feet, filled and the final touches^----------------------
being put on grading and covering of the area. When completed, this will provide space for more than 400 automobiles.
The club’s boat trailer area also has been filled and grading and paving of this area will be completed, weather permitting, by June.
PARC PICTURES PAGE 4
All the fill has been put in for the softball-Little League baseball diamond and its completion will follow the work on the parking area. This order is necessary, club officers reported, because of the grading requirements, which will provide drainage from the parking lot south to the Seventh Street boundary of the club’s property.
The last month also has seen grading and filling with sand of the beach so that water skiers now have a smooth beach area for their takeoffs.
The Board of Directors expects
to have plans for the patio roofing ready for bid by May 25, with work to start as soon as the necessary contractural procedures are completed.
Member-wise, the club continues to grow. It still is possible for employes who have not yet renewed from last year, to do so on a payroll deduction basis, Wally Watlington, club president, pointed out.
“The way our payroll deduction plan has been arranged with accounting makes this easy method available to former members, as well as to prospective new ones,” he declared. “We urge everyone to take advantage of this while we still are in a position to offer it.”
May 23 will be “Bargain Day” at the club, Russ Cooper, entertainment chairman, reports. A fish fry, plus a barn dance, will be held for $1.50 per person. The fish fry will start at 6:30 p.m. with dancing at 8 :30 p.m.
Clipper Donated To Scout Leaders
Boy Scout leaders, 100 strong from Florida’s Dade, Broward and Monroe counties, flew from Miami to Atlanta by Pan American special Clipper to attend the annual Southeastern states executive council regional conference.
Pan American, reversing the Scouts’ good turn policy, donated the Clipper, while the flight crew volunteered its services.
Crew members were Capt. Donald F. Robbins, South Dade Scout commissioner; Co-Pilot Dale E. Fisher, Coral Gables cub scoutmaster; Flight Engineer James K. Lee, South Dade troop committee chairman, and purser Celestino Fernandez.
Passenger Increase Recorded at Miami
Passengers handled by Pan American at Miami International Airport during April boomed to 46,576, a 30 per cent, or 10,678 increase over the same month in 1958.
The big month gave Pan Am a 10 per cent increase or a total of 191,789 passengers in and out of Miami during the first four months of 1959 against 174,431 for the same period a year ago.
It’s a Wonderful NEW World With Pan American
Jet Sublo Travel Open Between Paris and Rome
Sublo travel on Jet Clippers between Paris and Rome has been opened to Company employes in keeping with a Company policy to make travel opportunities available as soon as space permits.
The Company is anxious to have as many employes as possible ride the Jet Clippers, but is forced to restrict sublo travel on transatlantic jet routes at this time because most flights are operating at capacity.
Cargo Booms To Americas
At the sprawling Clipper cargo terminal of Pan American at Miami International Airport, workers haye learned by experience that the heaviest shipping is done in November and December. The terminal continues at high speed through the winter months and then shipments begin to taper off in the spring.
Nor so this year. The busiest day in Pan Am’s history of shipments from Miami to Latin American points was on May 9, 1959. The all-time single-day record of 161,-623 pounds of southbound Clipper cargo even topped the record set in September, 1957 during a general steamship strike on the eastern seaboard.
The all-time daily record of 161,623 pounds — more than 80 tons—did not include any of Pan American’s own shipments to its far-flung points in Latin America. The fleet of DC-4 and one DC-6 Cargo Clippers also carried 24,076 pounds of company cargo in comparison with the 14,414 pounds transported on the previous record day.
Workers at the terminal loaded the cargo aircraft at two loading ramps, the shipments going aboard at the rate of 7,737 pounds per hour for the 24 hour period.
More Volume, Lower Rates Company Goal
Net Income Down As Expenses Rise, Report Indicates
Pan American hopes soon to initiate a vast, volume cargo program with a new type of jet Clipper.
The announcement, hailed with great enthusiasm by Latin American Division officials as well as shippers throughout the Americas, was made by President Juan T. Trippe in the Company’s annual report to stockholders.
Mr. Trippe said that the Company still is moving a major share of international air cargo but that the airline’s ultimate goal is to lower rates and increase the volume and speed of shipments.
\\	,	'	A fast jet, spe-
1	-	cially designed,
he stated, could handle five times a as much cargo as -1# f	present - day pis-
' Wj sf ’ ton - engined air-' craft. Rates could TRIPPE be cut in half, he pointed out, and parcel post and ordinary mail could move by air.
Trippe said that much has been done in cooperation with government officials and aircraft manufacturers during the past year along these lines.
Net Income Declines
Moreover, he pointed out, if some of the Company’s skilled personnel should be displaced by the technological impact of the new, efficient jets, they could remain in service to help move this new business.
The annual report shows that Continued on Page 3