75th Anniversary: ACW through the decades

1951

• Japan Airlines begins service with three Martin 202s and crews leased from Northwest.

1953

• United Parcel Service starts its “Blue Label Air” two-day service, using commercial airliners.
• The Air Freight Forwarders Association is formed by 12 of the largest U.S. forwarders.

1954

• The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) approves the merger of the Flying Tiger Line and Slick Airways, but the Flying Tigers-Slick Airlines entity is dissolved nine months later.

1955

• The defunct German airline Lufthansa is reborn, beginning commercial service from Hamburg to New York.
• Emery Air Freight rushes the first shipments of the Salk polio vaccine to 19 cities across the U.S. just 14 hours after the medication is licensed.
• IATA creates the Dangerous Goods regulations that permit once-banned goods to be shipped by air under strict handling protocols.
• Richard Malkin, Executive Editor of Air Transportation, publishes his book on the industry, called “Boxcars in the Sky.”

1956

• The $5.5 million, 309,000-square-foot International Air Cargo Center at New York’s Idlewild Airport is opened and hailed as the most modern freight facility in the world.

1958

• Slick Airways suspends commercial flights, blaming the government for failing to give all-cargo carriers “the same permanency of operating rights and quality of treatment enjoyed by the subsidized airlines.”
• In May, Douglas Aircraft launches the DC-8, the first four-engine narrowbody jetliner.
• In August, Boeing counters with the first commercial service of the four-engine 707 jet.
• The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is formed to oversee safety issues and manage the nation’s air traffic control system.