form of regulation of air carriers with the Air Commerce Act of 1926 and a variety of air mail statutes. This Act was superseded by the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, which imposed a broadened scope of safety regulation and basically treated air carriers like any other utility, granting them certificates to carry mail, cargo, and people. A "grandfather" clause in the Act saw carriers operating at the time of the Act granted certificates, and those carriers evolved into today's "trunkline" carriers, operating over long-haul routes of principal travel. Also permitted under certification procedures were the establishment of regional "feeder" operators, helicopter services, supplemental carriers, and - by exemption from most of the regulatory requirements - the "fixed-base operators" (FBO's) who were mostly air taxi operators.
The 1938 Act was administered by a tripartite authority consisting of a five-member "Civil Aeronautics Authority," which held quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative authority, a three-member "Air Safety Board" which investigated accidents, and an "Administrator of Civil Aeronautics" who both assisted the other two arms in their functions and developed new airways, landing facilities, and navigation aids. In 1940, Reorganization Plans III and IV saw the Air Safety Board abolished and its duties taken over by the five-member body now renamed the Civil Aeronautics Board. The Civil Aeronautics Administration, headed by the Administration of Civil Aeronautics, later became the federal Aviation Agency and was placed under the Department of Commerce. Though the CAB was under the Department of Commerce, it kept its independence and functioned as a regulatory agency in much the same way as does the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Power Commission, and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Functions were split. The CAB regulated the economic aspects of air op...