Clipper, Vol. 10, No. 4, May 1953

              New Telefax System Speeds Messages
Pan American Wo rid Atrways LATIN AMERICAN DIVISION
They Know a Lot Of Languages!
Picture Story on Page 5
Story on Page 8
VOL. 10
No. 4
MAY 1953
530526
IT’S BACK TO SCHOOL for thousands of LADers as the division’s new Attitude and Sales Training Program gets under way. With “Professor” Theodore C. (Ted) Pelikan, sales training superintendent, leading the discussion and three of his fellow “key trainers” at the conference table, one of the initial session^ is in full swing here. Clockwise around the table (starting from the back corner of the room) are Rudy Lund, a senior station manager; William T. Turso, chief flight instructor; Russel Howard, flight instructor; Capt. James C. Waugh; Edward U. Clapper, advertising production superintendent; Harry Piedra, sales training supervisor; Daniel C. Pearson, Jr., assistant chief pilot; Mortimer H. Naff, Jr., Link Trainer instructor, and Don McCorquodale, traffic inspector.
First Round of On-Line Conferences Completed
LAD Manager Edwin Drescher early this month completed his first round of on-line meetings with executive-level personnel at a conference conducted in San Salvador May 7, 8 and 9.
Previously he had met with a group in San Juan March 16-17 and with another group in Port of Spain March 23-24.
At San Salvador, as at the ear--®*
lier conferences, Drescher outlined 1953 plans for the division. Basically, they call for a continuing campaign to effect1 sound economies and at the same time improve performance.
In all of his talks, the division manager stressed “teamwork” as the means of accomplishing the announced goals for 1953.
Quick improvement in operational procedures followed the presentation of Drescher’s ideas, which were received enthusiastically at all the conferences.
Following the pattern established at the earlier meetings, LAD department heads from Miami accompanied Drescher to San Salvador and took the opportunity of discussing with the assembled personnel problems and procedures pertaining to their various functions.
This group included Traffic and Sales Manager Mario Martinez, Ground Operations Manager Richard S. Mitchell, Superintendent of Stations Arthur S. Best and Reservations Superintendent Fred P. Jensen.
Competitive fares and services, training plans, equipment and schedule recommendations were among the subjects discussed by Martinez and the various district traffic and sales managers attending.
Airport controls, passenger dispatching, station appearance, baggage, mail and cargo handling and off- schedule operations were among the topics taken up by Mitchell and Best with the station managers.
These sessions were held separately, with Drescher dividing his time between them. Joint gatherings also were held.
Of the many on-line personnel slated to attend the San Sal-
vador sessions, only two were unable to be present — Senior Representative Francisco Parra-ga of Salvador and Station Manager William R. McElhannon of Tocumen.
Those attending included District Traffic and Sales Managers Luis Marichal of Tegucigalpa, George Lindh of Managua, Ricardo Arango, Jr., of Tocumen, Charles E. Maher of Colon, James E. Schutt of San Salvador and Rodolfo Ulla of San Jose; Glenn Dennis, traffic and sales representative in Mexico City; Luis E. Porras, assistant district traffic and sales manager in Guatemala; Roy Bressler, station traffic manager at New Orleans; Station Managers John Parks, New Orleans; Judson Smith, Houston; Claude P. Hilliard, Brownsville; Malcolm B. Heckathorne, Guatemala City; Warren Rose, San Salvador; Daniel Appling, Tegucigalpa; David M. Watson, Managua, and Sidney G. Newcomb, San Jose, and Senior Might Dispatcher Estil L. Bruner of Brownsville.
C. B. Judson Gets New Radio Post
Charles B. Judson has been named to the newly created position of ground radio maintenance supervisor for LAD, with headquarters in Miami.
A native of Washington, D. C., Judson has been with LAD since 1940, when he joined the company as an airport radio operator in San Juan.
He was transferred to Miami in 1942 as an airport radio operator. He became a radio technician and assistant radio shop foreman in 1945 and a communications maintenance inspector in 1946.
185 N.Y.-Based Pilots Return To LAD Roster
The 185 New York-based pilots who fly Clippers between there and Latin America have returned their allegiance to LAD after more than a year as bookkeeping-bedfellows of Atlantic Division skippers.
But the pilots will hardly notice the difference. During their tenure as members of the Atlantic Division pilot pool, they continued to fly the same Latin American routes as before. Their assignments and pay checks were drawn from the Atlantic Division, however.
Their recent return to the LAD fold was strictly a paper manipulation. Capt. Lawrence M. Holloway continues as LAD sector chief pilot in New York.
Miami is the home base of 198 LAD pilots, Rio of 33, Houston of 31, Panama of 14 and Brownsville of four.
Division Inaugurates Long-Term Attitude, Sales Training Plan
Program Designed To Give Every Employe Full Indoctrination in Human Relations
The biggest single Attitude and Sales Training Program ever undertaken in the airline industry has been launched m LAD.
Scheduled to extend over at least a 10-year period, the program is designed to give every employe in the division a thorough indoctrination in human relations, job attitude and job techniques.
>--------------------^ The ambitious project focuses
y ^	attention on the study of two
International Air Carriers
PA A in 1952 again led all other air carriers in the international transportation of passengers, cargo and mail, President Juan T. Trippe told stockholders in the 25th annual report.
Clippers carry 28 per cent of all travel to and from the continental United States, whether moving by sea or air, Mr. Trippe pointed out.
“The company has completed 40,000 Atlantic crossings, 24,-000 trans-Pacific flights and 1,500 in round-the-world service—a record of experience unmatched in the industry,” he said.
“Revenue passenger -miles reached a new high of 1,807,000,-000, a 15 per cent increase over 1951. Passengers carried in 1952 totaled 1,426,000, against 1,287,-000 the previous year, an 11 per cent gain.”
Average trip per passenger was 1,267 miles.
Pan American also maintained its leading position in cargo, flying a total of 51,617,000 cargo ton-miles in 1952.
Three units of an improved type of jet transport, designated as the Comet III, were purchased from the de Havilland Company of England for delivery late in 1956 —to date the only jet transport order by an American flag airline.
During the year, final payments were made on 18 new Douglas Super-6s as well as initial payments on 27 Super-6s and three Douglas cargo Clip-Continued on page 6
_ 3SO Staffers Score Victory in Red Tape War
Two members of the downtown Miami District Sales Office staff heaved big sighs of relief a few days ago. A solid year of all-our war against red tape had finally been won.
The two never-say-die DSO staffers were Stewart Hall, traffic supervisor, and Alice Mood, sales agent.
It all started a year ago when a Yugoslav-born Miami rooming^ house operator, Stojan Dragojevic, walked into the sales office and asked if anyone could help him arrange for a granddaughter in Yugoslavia to fly to Miami to live.
Hall and Miss Flood spent an often-frustrating year of negotiations through PAA’s Frankfurt, Germany, offices. The red tape trail went from there to United States and Yugoslav officials in Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital.
At one time Dragojevic became so discouraged that he received a refund on his pre-paid ticket for the granddaughter, Ljuba Roadojevic, a worker on a collective farm at Lisicine, in northern Yugoslavia.
The hard work finally paid off, though. Ljuba was cleared to move to Miami and her new home.
She Clippered from Frankfurt to New York and Dragojevic met her on arrival in Miami. It was the first time they had ever seen one another.
Hall and Miss Flood were proud as punch to have had a part in bringing the two together. But after a full year that saw more than 80 cables and a score of letters sent back and forth, they also gave vent to some king-size sighs of relief.
groups of people — the employes who run LAD and the people who buy the tickets to keep it running. Figuratively speaking, both the employe and passenger are dissected in the classroom so that the problems and interests of each can be scrutinized, recognized and appreciated.
“In this way,” LAD officials point out, “the employe’s own problems can be singled out and clarified, and each employe, through clearer understanding, can better perform his own job and give the passenger what he wants: a superior quality of service.	#
“In the final analysis, the purpose of the program is to retain the unity of purpose, the high degree of morale, the sense of personal accomplishment and the excellent standard of service to cua-tomers which has made PAA the world’s leading international airline.”
Focal point of the training program is division headquarters in Miami, to which district traffic and sales managers and other key personnel from on-line stations are coming in small groups for a week-long “training the trainer” clinic.
Returning to their home stations, they will pass the training on to employes there at the rate of three hours of instruction a week for 10 weeks. This part of the program completed, they then will return to Miami for more advanced material and a continuation of the course.
The far-flung training program was launched April 6 when Frank Howe, system superintendent of visual sales and training, and his assistant, Louis Goodman, came down from New York to Miami to train the “key trainers”, of LAD.
“Pupils” in this intensive, week-long session included the four men who are now conducting the school for on-line personnel — Theodore C. (Ted) Pelikan, LAD sales training superintendent, who has been stationed variously in Mexico City, Guatemala City and Bogota; Rudy Lund, a senior station manager with 20 years’ experience in assignments for PAA at Port-au-Prince, Guatemala City, San Juan, Paramaribo, Ciudad Trujillo and Miami; Don McCorquodale, traffic inspector, with 15 years of service throughout the division, and Harry Piedra, sales training supervisor, who has had Continued on page 6
Smith Renamed LAD Mail Superintendent
J. Archer Smith, Jr., for the past two years an assistant to Warren Pine, PAA’s special representative in Havana, has been reappointed to his former position as LAD mail superintendent.
His duties include the development of airmail and parcel post throughout the division.
Smith joined PAA’s traffic department in Miami in 1939, soon after his graduation from the University of Florida.