For U.S. airlines, the question in 1947 was not how good, but how bad, was business. Last week, as its annual reports came in, the industry added up the answer: the 16 scheduled domestic airlines had lost more than $20,000,000.
Hardest hit was United Air Lines, Inc., which had a $1,086,961 profit in 1946. The rise in costs, poor weather early in the year, and the grounding of all the new DC-6s swelled United's loss to $3,747,000. American Airlines, Inc., biggest domestic carrier, was also nipped by the grounding. Though its traffic (some 1.4 billion passenger miles) and gross revenues...
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