1951
- Japan Airlines begins service with three Martin 202s and crews leased from Northwest.
1953
- United Parcel Service starts its “Blue Label Air” two-day service, using commercial airliners.
- The Air Freight Forwarders Association is formed by 12 of the largest U.S. forwarders.
1954
- The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) approves the merger of the Flying Tiger Line and Slick Airways, but the Flying Tigers-Slick Airlines entity is dissolved nine months later.
1955
- The defunct German airline Lufthansa is reborn, beginning commercial service from Hamburg to New York.
- Emery Air Freight rushes the first shipments of the Salk polio vaccine to 19 cities across the U.S. just 14 hours after the medication is licensed.
- IATA creates the Dangerous Goods regulations that permit once-banned goods to be shipped by air under strict handling protocols.
- Richard Malkin, Executive Editor of Air Transportation, publishes his book on the industry, called “Boxcars in the Sky.”
1956
- The $5.5 million, 309,000-square-foot International Air Cargo Center at New York’s Idlewild Airport is opened and hailed as the most modern freight facility in the world.
1958
- Slick Airways suspends commercial flights, blaming the government for failing to give all-cargo carriers “the same permanency of operating rights and quality of treatment enjoyed by the subsidized airlines.”
- In May, Douglas Aircraft launches the DC-8, the first four-engine narrowbody jetliner.
- In August, Boeing counters with the first commercial service of the four-engine 707 jet.
- The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is formed to oversee safety issues and manage the nation’s air traffic control system.
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