The Key West Citizen Newspaper, October 22, 1954, Page 7

| Yor elected commissioner; foe Allen, fe using our good friend, Aerovias Q, to confuse the issue. He charged ind broadcast last week that National Airlines’ main objective is to cause abandonment of Meacham Field sgthat Aerovias Q will be put out of business. This is not true! Aerovias Q, together with all other airlines, has for the past several years, served Palm Beach at the Jnited States Air Force Base at West Palm Beach; Florida. Is there any reason why the United States Navy jwould refuse permission to a.friendly Cuban Flag carrier which already serves another Florida city at an /Air Force base? Has the Board of County Commissioners requested permission for the use of Boca Chica airport? Call your commissioners and ask them! é It is true, as Commissioner ANen stated, that National is certificated by the United States Government to operate between Key West and Havana. President Truman signed that authority on May 23, 1947. National has tried for years to get permission from the Cuban Government to fly that route . . . is still trying . . . and expects that it will be granted. National’s prospects of getting Cuban approval for the Key West - Havana route are far better with a Cuban airline already flying it than they would be were Q denied airport facilities in Key West! Therefore, the charge that National wants your Board of Commissioners to put Aerovias Q out of business is a malicious “red-herring” attempt to cover up the fact that your airport planning has been shockingly bungled! The real issue between National Airlines and your Board of County Commissioners is the adequacy of Meacham Field * { Commissioner Allen admitted jn his radio report to the citizens of Key West that “our airport today is not as good as it was some 25 years ago.” National has been handicapped in its service to Key West for years by inadequate airport facilities which permit only -small-plane daylight operation. We've shouldered criticism of service—criticism that rightfully belongs to the officials who let this inadequacy exist. You've seen National’s large, luxury’4-engine airliners only when we flew into Key West in connection with visits of the President of the United States. And then we had to operate at Boca Chica! The sketchy technical information furnished us by your corfimission on the proposed Meacham Field “improvements” indicate that the field will be inadequate for unrestricted twin-engine Convair operation. It would be impossible to serve Meacham Field with the 4-engine aircraft which have built other Florida ALLEN’S “RED HERRING” is being drawn across your path to prosperity! cities with luxury high speed service and low-cost coach flights from Northern points. Specific glans end * | engineering data for the proposed “improvements” have not been made available. We do know that on the _ basis of the information given us they are inadequate. We do know that any further development of Meachem -~' Field will create a dangerous conflict with the air pattern at Boca Chica. And your Board of County Com. - ° missioners wants us to pay retroactively to January 1, 1954, for an airport project plan that mot ~ ‘ only has not been approved...but hasn’t even been submitted to the Civil Aeronautics Adminis. * - tration which is the government body responsible for safe airline and airport operations! And note this: the United States’ Civil Air Policy issued by the President’s Air Coordinating Committee - in May, 1954, states: “Expenditure of public funds for unnecessary duplication of civil and military airport * ‘ facilities is a luxury this nation cannot afford. When civil and military operations required in the publie © — interest can be conduxted from a single airport safely and economically, and without serious curtailment of :: either form of activity, such joint civil-military use should be made,” Not only can such operations be conducted safely, but there will be far more safety than would Z. exist with the hazard of two airports so elose together, ‘ Why is your Board of County Commissioners opposed to the use of the Boca Chica Naval Air Station for your commercial air services? If National and Aerovias Q went to Boca Chica, you would have facilities capable ofthandling the * largest commercial aircraft in the world today, day or night. Maximum safety would be provided with alt * aircraft... both commercial and military ... landing and taking off under the direction of a single contro [ tower. The wonderful facilities already paid for by the taxpayers would be available almost immediately f after permission is granted by the Navy. Has this permission even been requested? National would construct its own terminal or would gladly join with Aerovias Q in the cost of a terminal to be used by both tines. 9 So let’s face the facts. Perhaps your elected Board of County Commissioners cannot be expected to be experts on airports and air safety. Maybe they were led astray by their airport advisor. If Boca Chica were the airport for Key West’s commercial air service, there wouldn’t be any county airport. There might not be any airport advisor. Maybe, as Bill Spillman asks in his “Grain of Salt” column in the October 7th iesue of the Citizen... “Is Wilde Worth It?” Let’s give Key West its rightful place in the sun... let’s work together to build your future and ours! NATIONAL AIRLINE OF THE STARS ?