Taking Flight: The Foundations of American Commercial Aviation, 1918–1938 by M. Houston Johnson V (review)

In our contemporary commercial air travel system, many have had the stressful experience of standing in long lines at airports to pass through security checkpoints, waiting at crowded gates to board flights, and hoping flights are not delayed. We endure sitting in uncomfortable and cramped seats on passenger planes for long periods of flight time. Our experience is different from the halcyon days when flying on passenger planes was a fun and exciting adventure. While passengers had to endure a different set of challenges, such as flying below rain clouds in unpressurized planes or listening to the drone of propeller-driven engines, air travel still retained its appeal. Regardless of one’s experience, a large question always loomed: is air travel safe? In Taking Flight: The Foundations of American Commercial Aviation, 1918–1938, author M. Houston Johnson V explores this question and others through a thorough examination of presidential aviation policies during the interwar years.

According to Johnson, the safety record of the contemporary aviation system began with the underappreciated vision of Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, who believed that the federal government’s role should be limited to ensuring that the airlines had certified pilots and safe aircraft, providing adequate navigation facilities for pilots, and making sure that airports met minimal standards to transport mail and passengers. Hoover opposed the notion, common in European countries, that the federal government should entirely subsidize and control the commercial aviation industry. Through this concept of associationalism, or what also might be referred to as a public-private partnership, the success of the commercial aviation industry depended on both government subsidization and private investment. Interestingly, Hoover’s progressive view of commercial aviation survived an airmail scandal involving his former postmaster general Walter Folger Brown and continued in the New Deal policies of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In this well-researched book, Johnson provides concise analysis of aviation policy during a time before government regulation, when a nascent commercial aviation industry experienced growing pains in the form of numerous aircraft accidents and considerable disarray. While the Air Commerce Act of 1926 provided a basic framework requiring pilot certification and aircraft maintenance records, the most significant contributions, argues Johnson, came through the policies of Hoover and Roosevelt. For example, Johnson provides excellent analysis and detailed commentary about the machinations of Postmaster General Brown, who sought to reorganize the airline industry by awarding the major airlines the most lucrative airmail contracts. He thus intentionally discouraged smaller airlines from undercutting the larger ones by offering smaller bids on airmail routes. While this policy resulted in a considerably shrunken industry, it drew the unwanted attention of Alabama senator Hugo Black, who launched an investigation into the postmaster general’s “‘spoils conferences’” and concluded that Brown’s action was monopolistic in nature and illegal (p. 132). This story and others are sprinkled throughout the book.

The book’s shortcomings are very few and minor. For example, there is only brief mention of the 1931 Transcontinental and Western Air crash in which famed University of Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne and others lost their lives, which emboldened skeptics of commercial aviation’s safety to urge the federal government to stop subsidizing the airlines. Also, the book makes no mention of the early partnership the airlines had with the railroads because, prior to lighted airways, pilots could not see and fly at night. Overall, the book is concise in aviation policy analysis and deep in description. It certainly will draw the interest of aviation scholars, policy analysts, and possibly general enthusiasts.