The History Centre seems to recall reading that the program was cancelled when it was found that many of the free riders were not the businessmen’s wives.

            Companion Fare? – Dateline - June 26, 1938. - “US Airlines Half Fare for Children” – In an effort to generate more family passenger traffic, American, United and TWA are offering half-price tickets for children next Friday. The reduced fare will apply to youngsters between two and 12 years old. The fare cut announcement comes midway through a year that shows airlines in the U.S. carrying more passengers than ever before. If travelers continue to fly as frequently as they have so far this year, it is projected that last year’s record of 1,102,707 passengers will be exceeded by 20 percent.

News Rules for Travel Confound Passengers

            Dateline – Croydon, England – March 17, 1936 – Smoking in an airliner’s toilet is as serious an offense as smoking in school. An Imperial Airways passenger, caught red-handed in lighting up against airline regulations in a Handley-Page HP-42 en route from Paris to London, was fined ten pounds in a Croydon court today. This is the first case of its kind to come before the British courts, and it seems the severity of the fine is designed to deter others.

            The incident highlights some of the restrictions placed on airplane travelers which are generally not found on trains or ships. In flight, they must remain seated almost the whole of the time and, if standing, resume their seats instantly at the command of the pilot. Hold and cabin baggage must still be separated as aboard ship, and luggage is also restricted to size and weight, not easy for passengers with large wardrobes. Passengers themselves are weighed before being let on board, which some regard as a great indignity. Mid-air snacks are frowned upon, unless they are supplied by the airline, and vacuum flasks and other items liable to be affected by changes in atmospheric pressure are completely forbidden.

Japan Eyeing Small Car Export Market

            From NWA News (March, 1958). – Japan may soon join Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Sweden as an exporter of small cars. Encouraging reports about the-performance of the few Japanese cars now abroad are leading Japanese car manufactures to believe there is a big export future for that nation’s auto industry.

            Japan exported about 6,000 small cars in 1957, double the 1956 exports. Japanese manufactures have been working hard on improvements to enable their cars to stand up under difficult road conditions. One of Japan’s auto manufactures, the Toyota Motor Co., produced 7,800 units during a recent month, a postwar high.

Looks like they were both right and successful.

…A Little More Pioneer Lore

HOLMAN AND BULLOCK; BORN TO BE AIRBORNE
AND FLYING LEGENDS IN THEIR OWN TIME

            The fifteen years following World War I was a golden era for early-day aviation – for the winged acrobats and barnstormers who thrilled our grandparents at state fairs and air fairs and during impromptu exhibitions of aerial bravado. Looping-the-loop was a standard maneuver in many of those aerial circuses. And among the foremost loop-the-loopers the world has ever known was Northwest’s Charles “Speed” Holman.

            “Speed” (he disliked that nickname, his friends called him Charlie) did 1,433 of them in five and a half hours over the St. Paul airport (which now bears his name) on St. Patrick’s Day, 1928. (Earlier he had done 1,093). It’s said his record stood until about 1950.