1920s. In addition to the companies which were to later become American, Eastern, Pan American, and United, Delta Air Lines and Trans World Airlines (TWA) got their starts in the last half of the 1920s (Moskowitz, Katz, and Levering, 1984).
Most of the new airline companies began to flounder soon after they were founded. In the mid- and late-1920s, Herbert Hoover (later to become president of the U.S.) was the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. He is given great credit for the establishment and development of the commercial air transport industry. He witnessed the financial and operational disasters which were occurring in the new industry. His office drafted, and he pushed through Congress the Air Commerce Act of 1926 (Lee, 1984). The Act brought federal government regulation to the airline industry.
This early government regulation covered every facet of the industry. It was brought about primarily at the behest of the industry, who brought their problems to the attention of Hoover. The industry wanted
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