In the 1920’s, as airmail was ‘taking off’ all across America, the U.S. government was eager to develop mail service between North and South America. On March 8, 1928, Congress passed the Foreign Air Mail Act to regulate that international service.  A few weeks later, the Postmaster General solicited bids for companies to take over a wide-ranging network of mail routes all across Latin America and the Caribbean.

It was the catalyst that created that provided the impetus for three major air carriers to merge into one.  Atlantic, Pan American, and the Aviation Corporation united as the Aviation Corporation of the Americas. A new Pan American Airways Incorporated was created to act as the main operating subsidiary of the new corporation, and it was the ‘darling’ of President Calvin Coolidge’s administration.

The Federal government looked very kindly at Pan Am, and considered it the United States’ “chosen instrument” for foreign policy.  Airmail was seen as an important strategy to facilitate U.S. economic expansion into Latin America and the Caribbean…and Pan Am was considered the right tool for the job.  To a large degree, Pan Am’s success was the direct result of provisions in the Foreign Air Mail Act.

The Act decreed that only airlines capable of operating on a scale and manner that would “project the dignity of the United States in Latin America” would be granted the right to carry international mail.  The Act also specified that contracts would only be given to companies that had been invited for operations by the countries of Latin America.

In these two areas…Pan Am had no competitors.

The U.S. government, in fact, awarded Pan Am every foreign airmail route for which bids were invited. These included routes to Havana, Cuba; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Nassau in the Bahamas; Mexico City; and Santiago, Chile.

Re-Purposing War Planes – With a large number of war-surplus aircraft in hand, the Post Office almost immediately set its sights on a far more ambitious goal, which was transcontinental air service. It opened the first segment, between Chicago and Cleveland, on May 15, 1919, and completed the service on Sept. 8, 1920, when the most difficult part of the route, the Rocky Mountains, was spanned. Airplanes still could not fly at night when the service first began, so the mail was handed off to trains at the end of each day. Nonetheless, by using airplanes the Post Office was able to shave 22 hours off coast-to- coast mail deliveries.

The main provision of the Air Mail Act changed the manner in which payments were calculated.   The purpose of the provision was to discourage the carrying of bulk junk mail to boost profits and to encourage the carrying of passengers instead.  A second provision allowed any airmail carrier with an existing contract of at least two years standing to exchange its contract for a route certificate giving it the right to haul mail for 10 additional years. 

But it was the third and most controversial provision that raised concern.  The Act gave Brown authority to extend or consolidate routes based on little more than his personal judgment.  Brown took full advantage of his new powers which resulted in one of the most notorious ‘black eyes’ in Post Office history.

Dirty Doings Going On
The Air Mail Scandal, also known as the Air Mail Fiasco, is how American journalists of referred to the political scandal that arose from an investigation into Brown’s meeting with the executives of America’s three top private airlines and their parceling out of America’s airmail routes.

The men who attended the aptly dubbed ‘Spoils Conference’ had divided the nation’s lucrative air routes among themselves.  The three carriers later evolved into United Airlines (which took the northern airmail route), TWA which had the mid-United States route,  and American Airways (later American Airlines) which controlled the southern route.

Smaller airlines were enraged by the obvious political favoritism.  In September 1933, a complaint was registered with the Senate Committee on Ocean Mail and Air Mail.  Chairman Hugo Black of Alabama agreed to establish a special Senate committee to investigate alleged.

It soon became evident that Brown’s administration of the air mail had increased the efficiency of the service and lowered its costs from $1.10 to $0.54 per mile and that there were obvious partisan politics involved in investigating what appeared to be a Republican scandal by a Democratic-controlled committee. 

Still despite all this, the hearings raised serious questions regarding its legality and ethics.

Postal aircraft could fly with sacks of mail for an average cost of $64.80 for each hour in the air. Pilots received a base pay of about $3,600 per year and then were paid five to seven cents more for each mile they flew, flying an average of five to six hours each day. After a year in operation, postal revenues for the year totaled $162,000. The cost to fly the mail had been just $143,000. This first year of operation was to be the only time in airmail history that the service showed a profit.

While some consider homing pigeons the first airborne delivery service, is generally agreed air mail as we know it originated in 1785, on a balloon flight from Dover, England to a spot near Calais, France. The first airmail stamp…designated specifically for airmail…didn’t appear until more than 125 years later. It was created in Italy and used on experimental flights. Austria got on the airmail bandwagon with a designated stamp in March of 1918, followed in May by the United States.
 
The concept was so new and limited that airmail stamps were produced by overprinting special delivery stamps.
 
Early airmail was significantly less direct than it is today. So a single cover may have special airmail markings applied, the transit times reflected in dispatch and arrival postmarks, and the airmail postage rates all indicate the means of flight and the route taken.
 
(The dirigibles of the 1920s and 1930s also carried airmail…known as dirigible mail. Still another arm of airmail cover collecting is air crash mail.)
 
Collectors already smitten with covers were especially interested in the new world of air mail. They went to great lengths to find out about the first flights between various destinations, and to get their letters onto them. In addition to the airmail stamps, authorities often used special cachets on the covers, and in many cases the pilot would sign them as well.

It was love at first flight.

The fact that airmail service was relatively new — and particularly dangerous — appealed to Lindbergh’s daredevil nature. He wrote of the perils of his profession that, “the best way to cope with danger is to keep in contact with it.”

Lindberg loved the challenge of a good competition and was drawn to the Orteig Prize of $25,000 for the first nonstop New York-Paris flight. He was competing with top flyers from around the world, including U.S. Navy Commander Richard Byrd.

In 1927 at age 25, Lindbergh left his competitors in the dust as he crossed the country in 22 hours to arrive in New York on May 12th, before departing again on May 20. He left at 7:54 am from Roosevelt Field on Long Island and arrived at Le Bourget airfield near Paris May 21 at 10:54 pm to a cheering crowd of more than 150,000. Lindbergh’s total flight time was 33 hours, 30 minutes, 29.8 seconds. The pilot had not slept in 55 hours

Lindbergh carried only five covers on his famous 1927 Trans-Atlantic flight and they were for purely promotional purposes. He had declined to take a real mail sack onboard because of concerns about over the effects of extra weight.