me piEomonmiH
VOL. VII, NO. 1
APACE WITH THE PACEMAKER
JANUARY, 1964
Look Forward, Be Thankful
To all Piedmont personnel:
It is again my happy privilege to report that our combined
efforts have resulted in another very good year for our Company.
Passenger traffic was up 26 per cent over the preceding year.
We have continued to expand our service even at a time when
many other local service airlines were reducing schedules. We
have vastly improved our on-time performance and schedule
reliability. We have completed our new engine overhaul shop.
Sales of the General Aviation and Central Piedmont Aero divisions
exceed, by a wide margin, all previous records. And, in addition,
we have continued to operate on a profitable basis.
All of this could only be accomplished through the extra
effort, teamwork, enthusiasm and loyalty of employees in every
department. A sincere “thank you" is the only way I know how
to express my appreciation, even though those two little words
seem awfully inadequate for the great job done by the Piedmont
family.
Sometimes I wonder if it gets boring to you for me to report,
year-after-year, another good year. We have had some bad years
in the past. But it has been a long time, and, of course, it is too
much to expect a good year every year. I am sure, however, it
would be much more boring if I had to report a bad year every
year. If that were the case, however, there wouldn't be many of
us around to get the report anyway.
The only thing wrong with having a good year almost every
year is that we tend to take it for granted. I guess it's human
nature. We forget to be thankful for our many blessings — our
family, a nice home, enough to eat, a place to work, our friends,
our church, our form of government, good health, and thousands
of other things. We are inclined not to really appreciate them
until they are gone. Many of us never bother to wonder whether
we have done all we should to deserve these good things of
life. And it's hard for us to realize there are many, many others
in the world who don't have these things that we take for granted.
It appears now that our Company, and I hope all of you,
will have another good year in 1964. I am sure it will be if all of
us will be thankful for what we have, if we will be more deserv
ing, and if we will help others to en'^'' the same good life.
On behalf of the director' s^d *f'rprs of r finp Company,.
I extend the wish that the New Year, for you and yours, will be
just like you would want it to be.
Sincerely,
T. H. DAVIS
President
Early Figures Indicate
'63 Was Record Year
Piedmont Airlines has just
closed out a record year in terms
of passengers, air cargo and air
mail boarded during 1963, ac
cording to preliminary figures.
Almost 900,000 passengers
boarded Piedmont flights sys
temwide during the past year,
representing a 24 per cent in
crease over 1962. Air mail in
creased 25 per cent over the pre
vious year, air freight 14 per
cent and air express 10 per cent.
October, 1963, was the best
Staff Position
On Subsidy Cut
Released By CAB
The Civil Aeronautics Board’s
Subsidy Division has released a
tentative proposal for a modified
local service class subsidy rate
formula under which payments
are to be made to each of the 13
local service carriers.
The Board says it has not
passed on the proposal, but that
it represents a staff position at
this time and has been released
,for consideration by. the local
service carrier industry.
The proposal is the prelimi
nary step which will serve as a
basis for informal conferences
between the carriers and the
staff. At these talks the facts
(Continued on Page Six)
single month in the airline’s his
tory for passengers boarded,
with a total of 88,190, a 25 per
cent increase over the October,
1962, figure of 70,182.
Boardings Up
System-wide passenger board
ings for 1963 totaled 895,486, as
opposed to 721,683 for the pre
vious year and revenue passen
ger miles were up 26 per cent
over 1962.
The company posted unusual
ly favorable passenger traffic
gains for the fourth quarter of
1963. The last quarter, which is
traditionally a low-volume pe
riod for most airlines, saw a rec
ord 241,946 passengers boarding
Piedmont’s flights as against
188,000 for the same period in
1962.
Industry Increases
Year-end figures for the air
line industry as a whole indicate
substantial increases in earnings
and traffic.
According to the Air Trans
port Association, the nation’s
local service carriers carried an
estimated 8,606,000 passengers in
scheduled service in 1963, an in
crease of 12.5 per cent over 1962.
Revenue passenger miles
flown by the locals totaled 1.8
billion, an increase of 15.1 per
cent; air freight was up 23 per
cent to 8.9 million ton miles; air
express was up 14 per cent to
4.3 million ton miles; and mail
was up 14.7 per cent to 4.4 mil
lion ton miles.
In 1963 the local airlines serv
ed over 550 U. S. cities.
Follow These Tax Rules, Says IRS
Efficient operation of the
Government is everybody’s re
sponsibility, says the Internal
Revenue Service, adding that
taxpayers can help reduce the
cost of Government by making
sure their Federal tax returns
are accurate and complete.
The IRS has asked The Pij
comply.
Pre-addressed income tax
forms for the calendar year 1963
will be mailed, says the IRS, to
taxpayers in Alabama, Florida,
Georgia, Mississippi, North Car
olina, South Carolina, and Ten-
jnessee. Because the pre-address-
/^ed information is vital to pro
monitor to publish,, the folloviJjjii,^,c e s s i n jUj^operations, taxpayers..
information on pre-addressed
tax forms. In hopes of partially
easing the pain of the taxpayer’s
annual agony, we are happy to
are urged to use these forms.
If they will follow these di
rections for preparing income
(Continued on Page Six)
Airport Congestion
Chief Cause
Of Flight Delays
Airport surface congestion re
mains the principal cause of air
line delays, according to a study
made for the Federal Aviation
Agency with the cooperation of
the Air Transport Association.
The study, made public recent
ly, found runways, taxiways,
ramp space and gate positions
inadequate for modern day air
traffic, particularly during the
evening “rush hour.” Air traffic
control was identified as the sec
ond largest of the primary caus
es of delays. The third prin
cipal cause was found to be
weather.
General conclusions drawn by
the study indicate that only one
in five flights, roughly, encoun
ter delays, that the significant
delays are concentrated within a
relatively few large air traffic
hub air commerce airports, and
that en route delays exist main
ly because of terminal conges
tion.
Ten airports with the greatest
number of total delays were dis
covered to be O’Hare, John F.
Kennedy (formerly Idlewild)
Atlanta, Washington, Los An
geles, Dallas, Newark, San Fran
cisco, Cleveland and Boston.
Conducted for FAA by R.
Dixon Speas Associates, Man-
hasset, N. Y., the study uses de
lay data reported by 22 airlines,
including the major U. S. domes-
(Contlnued on Page Six)
Brown, Kerr and Cash Relocate
As Station Transfers Completed
Three Piedmont men took up
new duties in new locations last
month, one going to Winston-
Salem, another to Tri-Cities, and
a third to Columbus.
Sheri Brown took
over December 1 as
Manager-Space Con
trol, replacing R. L.
- McAlnhin who was
promoted to Direc-
■ tor - Schedules,
•s." Brown came to his
Brown new job from Balti
more where he had been serv
ing as Station Manager.
He has been an airline em
ployee since 1953, when he join
ed Lake Central Airlines and
served a year with that company
at Louisville and Columbus. He
came to Piedmont in May, 1953,
at the Louisville station. In 1957
he was promoted to Lead Agent,
and in 1960 was transferred to
Cincinnati and p r o m ot e d to
Chief Agent. In January of last
year he was again promoted,
this time to Station Manager at
Baltimore.
A native of Hodgenville, Ky.,
Brown attended public schools
there, and after graduation serv
ed four years with the U. S. Air
Force. He was in Berlin for
three years as a Senior Air
Operations Specialist, and was
discharged with the rank of
Staff Sergeant. He is married to
the former Jeanne Elliott of
Elizabethtown, Ky. They have
two children.
To Tri
W. C. Cash has transferred
from Columbus to Tri-Cities as
Station Manager to fill the va
cancy created by the death in
October of Manager Donald D.
Woods.
Cash was born in Roanoke
and is a graduate of the city’s
Jefferson Senior High. He re
ceived additional school training
at the airline division of Central
Radio and Television School in
Kansas City, Mo.
After serving with the Army
Security Agency in Japan and
Korea, he joined Piedmont in
1949 at the Charleston station.
In 1950 he was transferred to
Roanoke and subsequently pro
moted to Lead Agent and then
Chief Agent. He was promoted
to Station Manager in 1955 and
transferred to open the new sta
tion at Charlottesville. In 1960
he moved to Columbus where he
was Station Manager until his
present appointment at Tri-Ci-
ties.
He is married to the former
Edith Stretch of Mansfield, Ohio,
and they have three boys. (One
interesting side note — Cash
was born on February 20, which
is also Piedmont’s anniversary
date, and the date on which he
started work for the company.)
Wallace H. Kerr, the new Co
lumbus Station Manager, came
to that station from Roanoke to
replace transferring Bill Cash.
He was employed with Capital
(Continued on Page Six)
'''y-y ;
A weird-looking picture? Perhaps, but ifs an important one all the same.
In the summer of 1900, the Wright brothers made their first trip to the
beach beyond Kitty Hawk to test their glider-kite, seen above. It was
one of many experiments leading to the first powered flight. For a
pictorial look at the Wright Brothers Day celebration at Kitty Hawk
60 years later, turn to page four.