The story
The early years
Although Modern Air was conceived in 1946 in Hempstead, Long Island, it was incorporated as Modern Air Transport, Inc. on January 3, 1947. Later that year, Modern Air commenced commercial operations from Miami International Airport with war-surplus Curtiss C-46 piston-engined aircraft.
In 1950, the airline's operational base moved to New York's Newark Airport. Following another move to Trenton–Mercer Airport, New Jersey shortly afterwards, the airline was bought by C-46 type-rated pilot, John B. Becker, in 1951.
In 1956, Modern Air became the first US "non-sked" to be granted rights for up to 10 regularly scheduled round trip flights per month by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB). Modern's first scheduled service departed Pittsburgh International Airport for Miami on July 15, 1956. The route was flown on week-ends at a one-way fare of $38.05 or, alternatively, a $60.75 16-day excursion fare.
From 1958, Gulf American Land Corporation, a Florida-based property developer, began contracting business to Modern Air. Gulf American Land, which had been formed to develop a tract of land in Cape Coral, Florida near Fort Myers into residential real estate, contracted the airline to fly hundreds of prospective customers for its real estate developments every week into Miami from the US Northeast and Midwest. At Miami, Gulf American Land's prospective customers transferred between Modern Air's Curtiss C-46s and the Douglas DC-3s of Gulf American Land's own airline, Gulf American Airlines, which operated a shuttle service linking Miami to Fort Myers across the Everglades. Together with complimentary bus transfers between Gulf American Land's Golden Gate Estates development in Cape Coral and Fort Myers' Page Field airport, these flights formed part of Gulf American Land's free sales pitch and were free for prospective customers, who were also served a free meal on board the aircraft on each leg of their journey.
Modern Air's charter flights on behalf of Gulf American Land into Miami eventually accounted for 25% of the airline's total business.
Five ex-Capital Airlines Lockheed L-049 Constellation piston airliners were bought in 1961 to replace the C-46s. These joined the fleet during summer 1962. Only two of these entered actual airline service; the remaining three were used for spares.
The grant of an interim certificate by the CAB in October 1962 to operate domestic military contract flights, intrastate and overseas charters from April 1, 1963, was followed by further fleet expansion, including the temporary lease of a pair of Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellations and the purchase of an L-749A in 1964.
The acquisition of five Douglas DC-7Cs in April/May 1965 resulted in retirement of the Constellation fleet due to the former's superior range. The same year also saw the acquisition of five DC-3s from Gulf American Airlines (for whom they continued to fly).
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On May 30, 1966, the CAB authorised Modern Air to operate charter flights from the US to Canada and Mexico.
Further fleet expansion ensued in August 1966 with the acquisition of five Martin 2-0-2s from TWA and Allegheny Airlines, respectively. Also in 1966, the CAB broadened Modern's civilian and military charter authority, including granting the airline permission for limited scheduled air services. This enabled it to temporarily replace scheduled air services normally provided by major US certified route carriers during labour disputes resulting in strike action at the certified carriers and to obtain temporary CAB authority for scheduled flights from New York and Washington, D.C. to Miami.
Total revenues and profits for 1966 exceeded $4 million and $30,000, respectively.
The GAC era
Following Gulf American Land's purchase of Modern Air's entire stock from John Becker for $807,500 in May/June 1966, the airline became a wholly owned subsidiary of Gulf American Land Corporation on June 29, 1966. Concentration of most of Modern Air's business activities in Florida and the change in ownership resulted in consolidation of the airline's operations at Miami International Airport, the transfer of the DC-3s and Martinliners to sister airline Gulf American Airlines and the sale of the company's last remaining Constellation the following year. Gulf American Land Corporation's stockholder meeting in December 1966 resolved to shorten its name to Gulf American Corporation (GAC) to reflect its increasing diversification and approved an employee stock purchase plan worth $600,000.
Although Modern Air and Gulf American Airlines shared the same owners, who attempted to merge both airlines under the Modern Air name, both airlines largely remained organisationally independent of each other, with former Modern Air pilots continuing to fly the DC-7s on long-haul charters and their former Gulf American Airlines colleagues flying the smaller piston types (the DC-3s and Martinliners) into Fort Myers.
Gulf American's takeover by the General Acceptance Corporation in 1969 resulted in a major reorganisation of GAC's business units. This saw Gulf American Corporation and Modern Air become wholly owned subsidiaries of newly created holding company GAC Corporation, with all real estate related business activities being absorbed into newly formed GAC Corp subsidiary GAC Properties. These changes resulted in former GAC treasurer James M. Browne being appointed Modern Air president.
Transition to an all-jet fleet
The award of a five-year licence by the CAB in October 1966 to engage in cargo and passenger charter operations including all-expense tour charters between the US and points in Canada and Mexico enhanced Modern Air's new status as a permanently certificated US supplemental carrier. Following the award of these new foreign charter rights, the airline concluded a US$17.5 million purchase agreement with American Airlines to acquire five of the latter's Convair CV-990A jetliners between January 1967 and February/March 1968, in anticipation of major growth for low-cost overseas travel by US tour groups. The first two examples sported a new natural metal "Silver Palace" livery, which replaced the Modern Air Transport/MAT fuselage titles used in previous schemes with Modern Air titles. Modern Air's first jet, Convair CV-990A N5609, was handed over to the airline in February 1967. It was based in Miami and contracted by GAC to operate charter flights for prospective investors in its real estate development projects in Florida and Arizona. Modern received its second CV-990A, N5605, the following month. This aircraft was repainted in the contemporary Air France livery, in preparation of a short-term wet lease beginning in April that enabled the French national airline to introduce high-capacity jet aircraft on four daily round trips between Paris Orly and London Heathrow while awaiting delivery of its own Boeing 727-200s. Modern Air's CV-990s were configured in a spacious 139-seat, single-class seating arrangement. The aircraft's standard flight deck crew complement comprised three, including a flight engineer holding a mechanic's and inspector's licence. On flights involving long overwater sectors a navigator supplied by a third party joined the other three flight deck crew.
The slow and difficult integration of the old Gulf American Airlines and pre-GAC Modern Air workforces into a combined post-merger workforce encountered a further obstacle when Modern Air hired former military pilots to crew its new jets. This resulted in the two separate, unionised legacy pilot groups, as well as another unionised group representing flight attendants across both airlines and pre-GAC Modern Air flight engineers being joined by another, non-unionised group. In addition, the airline's problems were compounded by reliability issues and high costs. It was at this point that GAC called on the services of experienced senior airline manager and aviation consultant, Morten Sternoff Beyer, to head up the airline and manage the integration as well as turn around its fortunes.
In addition to its new CV-990 jets, Modern Air also leased a pair of Boeing 727-100Cs from Executive Jet Aviation in September 1967 as DC-7 replacements and to enable eliminating the intermediate stop in Miami to change flights as the 727's short-field capability permitted direct flights into Fort Myers' original airport at Page Field from GAC's prospective customers' points of origin with a viable payload. It also began negotiations with Boeing for the purchase of a single 727-200 and two 727-100s direct from the manufacturer. Following a labour dispute with its pilots, new Executive Vice President Morten S. Beyer (who had arranged the 727 lease with Executive Jet) returned the leased Boeing jets, did not finalise its order with Boeing for three new-built 727s and began grounding all piston airliners permanently from the end of 1967. The latter move saw the DC-3s and DC-7s put into storage at Fort Myers while the Martinliners were stored at Cape May, New Jersey. It also resulted in 100 job losses among flight crew.
Modern Air carried more than 360,000 passengers in 1967 while revenues increased to over $9.5 million. However, costs associated with the transition to a jet fleet and excess capacity resulted in a $3 million loss (a $2.98 million operating loss and a $3.6 million net loss, respectively).
Disposal of the stored piston airliners proved more difficult and took longer than anticipated, especially of the four DC-7s. While two were partially cannibalised for spare parts, the remaining pair were put up for sale for $60,000 apiece. However, when these were eventually sold in 1969 to Miami-based Interair Parts for only $8,000, Modern Air was well into the jet era.
Diversification into new business areas and overseas expansion
The agreement with Air France for the temporary lease of one aircraft beginning in April 1967 provided additional work for the new jets.
Further work to increase the growing jet fleet's utilisation was secured when the Federal Government awarded Modern Air a contract to carry military personnel between camps in the US. However, this was insufficient to justify continuing expansion of the fleet and workforce. By the time Modern's third 990 was delivered, it experienced financial difficulties. This resulted in layoffs and management changes. As Modern Air was liable to pay substantial cancellation fees and would have forfeited the deposits that it had already paid for the outstanding aircraft deliveries if it terminated its purchase agreement with American Airlines unilaterally, Modern opted to begin looking for additional business opportunities to keep the expanding fleet fully employed.
As a result of a narrow Soviet interpretation of the Potsdam Agreement between the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, access to West Berlin by air was restricted to three 10,000 ft (3,000 m) high and 20 mi (32 km)-wide air corridors, for exclusive use by aircraft under the control of individuals and (where applicable) organisations from the United States, the United Kingdom and France, the three Western victorious powers of World War II. These three air routes existed from February 1946 until German reunification in October 1990. They linked the exclave of West Berlin with West Germany and passed over the territory of communist East Germany. The airspace they encompassed was jointly administered from the Berlin Air Safety Center in West Berlin by representatives of the governments of all four victorious powers that had defeated Germany in World War II.
The massive post-war reconstruction effort in West Berlin, the city's rapid economic recovery following the end of the Berlin Blockade and the beginning of the German economic miracle resulted in rapidly rising living standards and disposable incomes of the local population. Together with the lifting of travel restrictions imposed by other countries on West German passport holders in the immediate aftermath of World War II and West Berlin's location inside East Germany this in turn drove the local population's rapidly rising demand for overseas travel and the growing popularity of package tours involving air travel. As West Berlin was out of bounds for German airlines, local tour operators chartered aircraft of the British independent airlines and US supplemental carriers that began flying from the city's Tempelhof and Tegel airports in the early 1960s.
Prior to Modern Air's arrival in Berlin, the biggest among these was US supplemental Saturn Airways. Saturn opened a base at West Berlin's Tempelhof Airport in 1964. Its Berlin-based fleet comprised Douglas DC-6 and DC-7 piston airliners, which were chartered by Flug-Union Berlin for its flying programme to several airports serving popular holiday resorts, chiefly in the Mediterranean. Flug-Union Berlin was the first tour operator with a West Berlin flying programme and acted at the time as the city's consolidator for the big West German tour companies Neckermann (then part of the eponymous mail order chain) and Touristik Union International (TUI), the travel arm of the mining company Preussag. Local rival tour operator Berliner Flugring, which had begun as a consortium of 70 local travel agents arranging inclusive tour (IT) flights from West Berlin to holiday resorts in Europe, also chartered Saturn's (as well as a number of different British independent airlines') aircraft for its flying programme. When some British independent rivals in West Berlin began replacing their piston and turboprop planes with jets such as the BAC One-Eleven and de Havilland Comet 4 from the mid-1960s, Saturn's piston airliners became obsolete. To remain competitive and to defend its market leadership in the West Berlin air charter market, it needed to re-equip with jets as well. Although it had already ordered the Douglas DC-8 Super 60 series and would operate the Boeing 707 as well, these were long-range aircraft unsuited to taking off from and landing on Tempelhof's short runways (as well as short runways at some overseas destination airports) with a viable payload. They were also unsuitable for the short- and medium-haul flights that dominated West Berlin charter flying and had too many seats to fill for most of the routes served by West Berlin charter aircraft. To match the superior performance of British competitors' jets and to exceed their passenger comfort, Saturn had no option but to acquire a dedicated fleet of short-/medium-haul jets, such as the Boeing 727, Boeing 737 or Douglas DC-9 for its West Berlin operation. However, following a change in Saturn's ownership, the new management decided to close the airline's Tempelhof base in 1967.
Although Saturn's contemporary British competitors in the West Berlin charter market moved quickly to fill the void left by the US supplemental's departure from Berlin, Saturn's former Tempelhof station manager, John D. MacDonald, was keen to re-establish a local US charter presence. This resulted in John MacDonald contacting rival supplemental Modern Air, who were looking for additional work for their recently acquired CV-990 jets, and using his local contacts with Flug-Union Berlin and Berliner Flugring to assist Modern with securing sufficient work to open a base in Berlin.
Ensuing negotiations with Berliner Flugring to operate a $3.5 million, West Berlin based programme, as well as a similar $2 million programme with Flug-Union Berlin and a $1.5 million, seven months wet lease of up to two aircraft to Canadian charter carrier Nordair, enabled Modern Air to utilize its spare aircraft capacity.
By the time Modern Air assumed Berliner Flugring's flying programme, the latter had become the city's foremost package tour operator. The two West Berlin charter flight programmes the American supplemental operated under contract to Berliner Flugring and Flug-Union Berlin accounted for approximately 500 round trips during its first summer season in West Berlin. The decision to supply whole-plane charter airline seats to both of the city's leading package tour operators also enabled Modern Air to take advantage of rules permitting regular charter flights from West Berlin all year round. This was more liberal than in the US, where restrictive rules governed non-scheduled air services as part of an effort by the CAB to protect the country's scheduled airlines.
To enable Modern Air to operate its new CV-990s into Fort Myers Page Field with a viable payload, GAC agreed to co-finance the lengthening of one of its runways, which until then had been limited to revenue flights with jet aircraft no bigger than the Boeing 727-100. As a result, the airline operated its first CV-990 revenue flight, which was chartered by GAC Properties to carry 134 prospective land buyers from Sioux City, Iowa into Page Field on February 1, 1968 (before proceeding to Kansas City, Missouri and Lincoln, Nebraska to return with another load of prospective buyers to Fort Myers Page Field).
By 1968, Modern Air operated an all-jet fleet comprising five CV-990s. The acquisition of a further two CV-990s from American Airlines at the end of 1970 expanded Modern's 990 fleet to seven aircraft. This allowed it to vie with Swissair for the title of the world's largest Convair 990 operator. The final enlargement of Modern's CV-990 fleet occurred in 1972, when it acquired former Brazilian flag carrier VARIG's final two examples. This brought the airline's 990 fleet to nine, briefly allowing it to assume the title of the world's largest Convair 990 operator. The expanded all-jet fleet facilitated the introduction of regular tour group charters carrying American tourists from the Miami and New York areas to popular holiday resorts in North and Central America, as well as the launch in May 1968 of a Canadian-based Caribbean and transatlantic charter programme, in addition to operating a large German charter programme. Eventually, all three US-based Modern Air CV-990s were allocated to the Canadian transatlantic charter programme, which Modern Air operated for Nordair under a wet lease arrangement (until 1970, when the Government of Canada revoked Nordair's permission to subcontract transatlantic flights to foreign airlines). At least two of these aircraft wore the full Nordair livery.
In 1968, Modern Air increased revenues by 20% to over $11.5 million (compared with 1967), while significantly reducing losses (a $1.3 million operating loss and a $2.4 million net loss, respectively).
Modern Air's expanding jet operations also led to further development in the airline's maintenance capabilities, as a result of the takeover of aircraft maintenance and conversion specialist, American Airmotive. This included one of Miami International Airport's biggest aircraft hangars and an aircraft maintenance base. Together with the earlier acquisition of the entire CV-990 spares inventory and engine tooling equipment, it helped the airline reduce its maintenance costs and improve the reliability of its fleet by enabling it to perform most maintenance tasks in-house.
Establishment and growth of West Berlin operation
In March 1968, Modern Air stationed two CV-990 jets at West Berlin's Tegel Airport. These were the biggest and fastest aircraft based at any Berlin airport at that time. Modern's new base employed 120. Apart from the flight deck personnel (who were required to hold US, British or French passports under West Berlin commercial air transport regulations), all were local. The latter included locally based, all-female cabin crew, who were known as "tiger girls" because of their distinctive yellow-and-black striped uniforms.
From Wikipedia’s article on Modern Air Transport, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4