Word: braniffs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...fares were first proposed by four U.S. airlines-Pan Am, TWA, Delta and Braniff. The Carter Administration heartily approved: its policy is to encourage minimum fares and maximum competition among airlines at home and abroad. But British officials insisted that extending cheap fares to so many cities before a longer trial period on the New York-London route was a dangerously uneconomic policy that might end up bankrupting some airlines, especially their...
...Fort Worth to London. Its reason: Pan Am, which only in the past two years has begun to earn a profit after years of heavy losses that at one point drove it to the brink of bankruptcy, could not stand any more competition. Carter gave the route instead to Braniff, which has been prospering mightily; the President cited "foreign policy considerations" that, as is his privilege, he did not bother to explain...
...Braniff award brought matters to a real boil. The airline had been fined for making illegal contributions to Richard Nixon's re-election campaign. Now the political wind has shifted from San Clemente to the South-and Braniff has influence there too. Virtually the entire Texas congressional delegation lobbied Carter. Says one airline lawyer: "They hit the White House like dive bombers from the Confederate air force...
...flight engineers charged last week that Carter had been subjected to pressure from Texas Governor Dolph Briscoe, "and possibly even from one high-ranking member of the Administration who is a former Braniff director." The reference was to Robert Strauss, who was Democratic National Chairman when Carter was nominated for President and is now Carter's chief trade negotiator. Pan Am asked the CAB either to stay the new route awards for 90 days or grant the routes only on a temporary basis. To no avail; last week the CAB staff was readying a final order for Carter...
None of that helps Pan Am, which has let its once enormous political power decline while Braniff has developed potency with Carter's Sunbelt constituents. The loss of any international route hurts Pan Am especially because it has no domestic service to supplement its foreign business. The airline pointed out that no department of the Government found any foreign policy reason for denying it the run from Dallas-Fort Worth to London. But the only opinion that counts is the President's, and according to several reports, he traded the award to Braniff for the votes...