Letter to the Chairman, Civil Aeronautics Board, Concerning International Local Service to Regina, Saskatchewan.

Dear Mr. Chairman:

I have reviewed the Board's recommendations in the Service to Regina Case on the basis of the broad national welfare, foreign policy and defense considerations, and other matters within my special responsibilities. I am compelled to return the Board's proposed order without my approval.

International local service should not, in general, be instituted in the absence of a reasonable probability that such service can survive. Can it be expected, for example, that traffic on this route would expand sufficiently to satisfy the Board's present "use-it-or-lose-it" policy within the three-year duration proposed for this certificate? If so, does the Board find that the carrier's operations on this route could become self-supporting? And if these questions can be answered in a manner favorable to certification, there remains the necessity of judging whether the subsidies involved are or would become excessive.

These questions are not intended to be exhaustive but only to suggest the difficulties of judging the public interest in this international case in the absence of policy and findings more closely defined than I find in the record before me.

On several occasions, as you know, I have expressed concern about the great and increasing cost of government subsidies to local service airlines. I hope that the Board will intensify its efforts to review and restate its policies governing the certification and subsidization of local service.

Sincerely,

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

The Honorable Whitney Gillilland

Chairman, Civil Aeronautics Board

Washington, D.C.