In fact, as early as this year, when Congress passed the Civil Aviation Act, John began to think about how to cooperate with the Whitneys. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 info No way, who told him to cross late and miss the golden period of the free development of the American aviation industry.

Since the end of the 20s, the civil aviation industry in the United States has entered a period of rapid development, and the major chaebols have set their sights on this piece of fat. In just 10 years, hundreds of aircraft manufacturers and airlines remained, and in the end, only 5 major groups composed of 38 companies remained.

After the big family almost finished dividing the territory of this emerging industry, the "Civil Aviation Law" came into being. Unlike the Air Mail Act of 1934, that Roosevelt-era New Deal law was aimed at?? It is the monopolistic behavior of big conglomerates. There's even a committee set up by Justice Blake of the Supreme Court to investigate monopolistic practices in the air transport industry.

The Rockefeller's Standard Oil empire was broken up by such committees, and any businessman, no matter how powerful he was, would have a numb scalp at it. This committee was indeed very tough, and as soon as it was moved, it dismantled the huge Boeing empire into pieces, forming United Technologies Corporation, Boeing Company, and United Airlines, and Hamilton, Sikorsky, Northrop and other "small companies" were born. The old Boeing, whose heart was broken, resigned from all his positions in anger, sold all his shares, and switched to breeding thoroughbreds.

However, the Civil Aviation Law essentially protects monopolies. It strictly controls the entry of new enterprises in the civil aviation industry and controls the number of domestic air transport enterprises; The number of aircraft, the number of seats and the scope of operations of airlines are strictly regulated, and it is stipulated that the entry and exit of routes must be approved by the government; At the same time, the merger of aviation enterprises is prohibited; Most importantly, it stipulates that the government controls air freight rates.

This last point is particularly important because the introduction of government pricing has eliminated free competition in price and capacity in the air transport industry, which fundamentally precludes the application of antitrust laws to the air transport industry. Historically, in the more than 40 years since then, no new airline has been granted the right to operate the backbone routes, except for the 23 existing carriers.

This was both good news and bad news for John. The good news is that he can also participate in the air transport industry while running Hughes Aircraft Company, and he doesn't have to worry about being forced to break up. The bad news is that the bar for air transport has been raised and it is not as good as it used to be. In the future, he plans to develop air transport services, so he can only cooperate with other enterprises. John approached the Whitney family, and strengthening cooperation with Pratt & Whitney was secondary, the key was to get a ticket to enter the air transport industry.

In fact, apart from Pan America, John had two other options. First, there's the Trans World Airlines that Hughes has just taken from the DuPont family. The company was founded by Wall Street financier Claremont Gies after it acquired a series of smaller airlines.

John has always felt that this guy Keith is a bit brainless, and he can't do a good job in North America, and he is bent on opening up the international market. If you open up the international market, you can just learn from the pan-American family and engage in Cuba and Latin American routes. He set his sights on China, and after a long time, he reached an agreement with the government of the Republic of China, founded the Civil Aviation Corporation of China, and opened up several domestic routes in China with Shanghai and Guangzhou as the core.

As a result, as soon as China and Japan started fighting, he was dumbfounded, and coupled with the impact of the previous economic crisis, several airlines under North American Airlines went bankrupt. In the end, the foundation that Guise had worked so hard to lay for many years cheapened the DuPont family. After the DuPont family bought Fokker Aviation and intervened in Lockheed, they took over North American Airlines. On this basis, Trans World Airlines, which is currently the third largest of the five major airline groups in the United States, was formed, and Henry DuPont himself served as the president.

Hughes has been buying shares in Trans World Airlines since 1937 and has recently become the company's largest shareholder. With the friendship between John and Hughes, it is not too difficult to use global aviation to develop an air freight business. But he didn't dare to do it, because Hughes was too bad.

Although Hughes invested a lot of money in Trans World Airlines and the company was doing well, he himself was a mess of the company's management. In the end, he was even sued by the company's shareholders and management, and was stripped of control of Trans Glo.

It would be strange if there was no general to make waves behind it. John remembered that in the future, most of Hughes's industries would be absorbed by the General Motors Department, and he didn't want to be drawn into the whirlpool of Hughes's struggle with General Motors.

John's second choice was American Airlines. Currently, the company owns 12 of the nation's 26 air mail routes, more than the Boeing's United Airlines and GM's Circumnavigation Airlines combined. But John didn't want to deal with AVCO behind his back.

AVCO (Aviation Corporation) was founded in Delaware in 1929. It has always had good tax incentives and will continue to be a popular place to register a company in the United States. In John's view, the company is more of a club than a business, an intermediary that helps shareholders manage the aviation business.

AVCOs often act as setters of assets, identifying suitable acquisition targets for their shareholders or helping them find buyers for their airline companies. The company has 66 directors, most of whom are members of large families. The chairman was William Harriman, who not only controlled the family's traditional property, the Union Pacific Railroad, but also the Wells Fargo-Amex (the predecessor of Wells Fargo and American Express).

Harriman's Yale alumnus, the owner of Lehman Brothers, a veteran Wall Street investment bank, also has an ambiguous relationship with AVCO. With the help of the Lehman brothers, AVCO acquired more than 90 companies in the past year, including the Roosevelt family's airport on Long Island, New York.

John has always had a dark mentality, feeling that the smooth introduction of the Civil Aviation Act this time is intrinsically related to the Roosevelt family's entry into AVCO. Many of the company's directors are big Democratic donors, and many have served as ministers and ambassadors and governors in Democratic administrations.

As a Republican, John, who has one foot in politics, doesn't want to have more to do with AVCO. Although it is not too taboo to cooperate in business, it is necessary to pay attention to the ways and means of operation. When there was a better option, John didn't want to go into trouble.

As for other airlines, they are either too small in scale and cannot meet the business radiation requirements of FedEx. Or, like Boeing's United Airlines, is in the middle of a property dispute and cannot be dealt with in the short term.

Therefore, the Whitney family's Pan Am is undoubtedly John's best choice. Anyway, in the future, it will be one of the three major sources of funding for the Republican Party, along with Pepsi and Rockefeller's Mobil Oil. John was looking for an opportunity for Hughes Aircraft Company to join the Pan American Department and get a ticket to the air transport industry.