Slick Airways

Main Body Slick Airways was founded in January 1946 by Earl F. Slick. On March 4th, 1946 operations began and at that point Slick operated a fleet of ten C-46 “Curtiss” aircraft purchased from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. During the first few years, the airline was the first U.S. freight carrier and was selected as one of the scheduled freight carriers in 1949. The DC-6B passenger aircraft entered service with United Air Lines on April 11th 1951, and Slick Airways was the first airline to operate the DC-6A freighter on April 16th 1951. Eventually Slick Airways became the largest cargo commercial operator by 1951. When competition increased from passenger airlines, Slick Airways then planned a merger with Flying Tigers. Passenger airlines were not in favor of this merger and protested against it. Slick Airways and Flying Tigers were still granted the idea to merge, however, due to labor problems on both sides the merger proposal was dropped. The Flying Tiger Airline was founded by Robert Prescott in Los Angeles, CA at LAX International Airport. In 1949, Flying Tiger was recognized as the first airline to have a commercial air cargo route. The route went from Los Angeles and San Francisco, CA to Boston, MA. During the Korean War, Flying Tiger were responsible to transport troops and supplies from the United States to Asia. The airline also played a major role in the construction of the Distant Early Warning Line, flying equipment to remote outposts in northern Canada and Alaska. Therefore, Slick Airways was known as being the commercial operator for air cargo and Flying Tiger was known as being the operator for military operations transporting cargo. The Deregulation Acts of 1977 and 1978 caused the regulatory reform in aviation. Alfred Kahn, the chairman of CAB, issued de facto deregulation of the CAB by virtue of administrative rulings that encouraged air carrier price competition and eased the establishment of new airlines.

Bibliography: Bowersox, Donald J. “Supply Chain Logistics Management” (2007, McGraw-Hill Companies) http://www.100-years-air-cargo.com/p/about-100-years-air-cargo.html http://www.tigerairways.com/ http://www.cl44.com/cl44/operators/Slick.html