Slick-haired William Allan Patterson, 39-year-old president of United Air Lines, likes to do things quietly. When he is in his Chicago office he shuttles smoothly back & forth between two heaped-up desks in a castered chair. When he is out on his linewhich hauls him some 40,000 miles a yearhe shuns casual acquaintanceships, likes to chin with pilots and stewardesses, peek at his aeronautical research projects (e.g., radio static eliminators, blind-landing systems) which have made United 'famed among U. S. airlines.
Fortnight ago W. A. Patterson made a characteristically casual announcement: United's transcontinental route, with Pacific Coast termini at Seattle and...