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Deft Maneuvers. Flamboyant Robert Six, Continental Air Lines' 61-year-old president, is after much larger dividends. Asia holds a tremendous fascination for him, which is traceable only in part to the fact that his third wife, Actress Audrey Meadows, was born in China. Six sees a big future in Asia and wants to make sure that Continental, the eleventh-ranked U.S. carrier, gets a share of it. Continental has based its plans to become a major international airline on winning some of the new air routes to be handed out under the expansion of trans-Pacific service now being considered by Washington. Continental received no routes from the Civil Aeronautics Board examiner who made the preliminary recommendations last April. The airline now pins its hopes on the President, who has the final say.
Meanwhile, back in Saigon, CAS has been performing some deft maneuvers to ensure its own future. In September, it signed an agreement to form with Air Viet Nam a yet unnamed airline that will handle all Vietnamese contract and charter air business. CAS, whose 50% share in the new venture assures it a reasonably secure future in Viet Nam, will initially operate the airline. "De-Americanization" of the war promises to be even more lucrative. CAS might well inherit military air transport chores that could increase the line's business tenfold.
