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Regular Trans-Atlantic Air Passenger Service Begins

[[Image: Picture of aircraft, tail # 18605, sitting on water with passengers loading.]]

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At Port Washington yesterday as the first pay-load passengers boarded the Dixie Clipper for Europe {Herald Tribune-Acme}
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OCEAN AIR SERVICE BEGUN BY CLIPPER 
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22 Passengers Off on First Commercial Flight--Due in Lisbon in 22 Hours
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Air transport entered a new era yesterday afternoon when twenty-two men and women filed casually aboard Pan American Airways' Dixie Clipper at Port Washington, L., I., and settled back in their seats for a twenty-two-hour flight to Europe.

At 3 P. M., the scheduled time, the 41½-ton craft started to move away from the floating dock, and twelve minutes later it was in the air on the first regularly scheduled commercial passenger flights by airplane over the North Atlantic.

At 10:30 P. M. (E. D. T.) the ship was 960 miles from New Yor, flying at 9,000 feet.

The fanfare and excitement that might naturally have been expected at the take-off were entirely absent.  In spite of the fact that this was the first paid pasenger airplane flight between this country and Europe, neither the passengers nor the crew of eleven under Captain A. O. D. Sullivan displayed any sign of excitement, nervousness or tension.

  Not Like Ship' Send-off

Not even among the several thousand persons who had crowded into the airport to see the plane off was there anything like the flurry that marks the sailing of an ocean liner. However, a feeling of amazement, even awe, was noticeable at the thought that one could now purchase a ticket for $375, board a plane at Port Washington and less than a day later step off in Lisbon.

Just before 2 P. M. several coaches carrying the passengers and newspaper reporters and photographers arrived at the city limits of Port Washington, from where a police escort led them to the airport. The town had declared a "semi-holiday" and had decorated the main street.

The twice national champion high school band of Port Washington was at the airport to greet the passengers and crew. In blue and white uniforms, eight-five musicians lined up on the airport apron and saluted the travelers with several selections.

Inside the administration building there was the usual scene before any take-off; passengers were checking reservations, being weighed and having the luggage weighed, only this time newspaper photographers were flasing bulbs at a prodigious rate Passngers laughingly posed for them and then answered questions of reporters.

   "Just Another Flight"

Most of them declared they were highly pleased to be on the first flight, but nearly all of them declared it was "just another flight" otherwise. All were seasoned air travelers, many having flown over the Pacific and the Caribbean on Pan American Planes.

At 2:30 a bell sounded and the crew left an office in the building and started for the plane. On the apron of the hangar they were surrounded by photographers and newsreel men and were kept ther ten minutes posing for pictures. Finally they got aboard the plane and at 2:44 P. M. started to warm up the four 1,500-horsepower Wright Cyclone engines.

Soon afterward 408 pounds of mail were put aboard and then the passengers left the ticket office. they, too, posed for photographers while the band played.

After a brief benediction pronounced by the rev. illiam J. Woo of Port Washington, Captain John J. Floherty of the Port Washington Chamber of Commerce handed to Captain Sullivan three scrolls to be delivered to the Mayors of Horta, Lisbon and Marseille. Each scroll said:

"The people of the Town of Port Washington, on Long Island, in the State of New York, have honored us with the mission of extending to you their cordial greetings on this momentous occasion, at which regular passenger service commences between your famous city and ours.

"Like the Port of (Marseilles, Horta and Lisbon inserted), this town has its own and ancient history as one of the oldest ports of this country. Now both our cities share the honor of being among the newest airports of the world.

"Permit us, my dear sir, to extend to you and your city our fervent wishes for prosperity and peace."The scrolls were signed by Dorothy Grant Ford, W. Davis Hegemen and Jack Champlain.

Last good-byes were exchanged and the passengers moved toward the big plaine.

"Write me a letter," a young girl called to her mother, who was waving as she went down the boardwalk.

"I'll be back before the letter," her mother laughed.

Manhasset Bay was crowded with sailing craft and motor boats decorated in bunting and flying pennants. The sky was almost cloudless and there was a fresh breeze out of the south as the plane taxied out in the bay for the take-off run.

It went out of sight around a point, then soon there was the hum of the engines and the craft appeared over the trees lining the point. Slowly it circled, came over the port and pointed it nose toward the Azores.

It will follow the southern Great Circle route, over which Pan American craft have already made fourteen flights.  The first stop on the 4,650-mile trip that ends in Marseille tomorrow afternoon will be Horta.  The clipper is expected to arrive there about 7 A. M. today.

Some of the passengrs plan to come back on the return trip of the Dixie Clipper next Sunday, but others will return later by air or by boat.
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[[article]]
6 Women on List Of the Clipper's 22 Passengers
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'Sailing" Rivals Those of Luxury Steamships, With Bands, Gayety, Confusion
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Twenty-two passengers, six of them women, sailed for Europe yesterday aboard the Pan-American Airways liner Dixie Clipper. Their actual sailing, of course, was confirmed to a couple of miles on the surface of Manhasset Bay. From there on it would be more accurate to say that they propellered.

Until the take-off of the big silver and orange flying boat, however, their departure was amasingly like that of any regularly scheduled luxury liner, heading out for the Atlantic crossing. The forty-one-ton Dixie Clipper dropped her hawsers and moved slowly away from her Port Washington, L. I. dock at 3 p.m., and her departure was a perfect replica, in miniature, of the gala sailing of the huge 83,000-ton French liner Normandie, which was pushing off for Europe at the same hour fro West Forty-eighth Street, over in Manhattan.

There was the same holiday confusion, excited passengers arriving at the company office and checking their tickets, porters handling baggage, visitors and friends on hand for a final chat, flowers being delivered, a band playing, a crowd gathered outside to watch the ship depart, interviewers, photographers and newsreel cameramen at work. The only thing missing from the picture was the traditional bon voyage party on board the ship; commercial aviation across the oceans hasn't reached that point yet.

C. V. Whitney, chairman of the board of Pan American, who was accompanied by Mrs. Whitney on the flight, said he was making an inspection trip to study the line's newest passenger service at first hand. They plan to return by air over the northern Atlantic route, leaving Southampton on July 12, he said. Mr. Whitney said the company had succeeded in working out a reasonable rate schedule fo rthe passage--$375 fo rone crossing and $675 for the round trip.

"For a trip of this kind I think that is moderate." he said. "We have tried to place it at a level within the reach of business men and all travelers who wish to use this type of high-speed transportation to Europe."

Two passengers, Julius Rapoport, a lawyer, of Allentown, Pa., and Mrs. Clara Adams, of 53-61 Seventieth Street, Maspeth, Queens, were starting trips around the world by airline. Mr. Rapoport said the trip was a vacation journey, and that he expected to be back home in twenty-four days. He was not racing with Mrs. Adams, he said, and did not know until yesterday that any other passenger was going on around the world.

"I planned this world trip two years ago," he explained" but had to drop the idea then because of the burning of the dirigible Hindenburg. As it is, I'm very happy to be starting the trip in an American-flag ship, with American personnel."

He and Mrs. Adams will follow different routes across Europe, but may meet again in Hongkong. She hopes to complete her trip in sixteen days, but is counting on a lucky connection with the Pan American clipper starting out across the Pacific Ocean from Hongkong on July 6. The best airline connections won't get her there on time for the flight, but if adverse weather holds the clipper in port for eight hours or so she should be able to get aboard. Otherwise she will have to wait a week for the July 13 flight, on which Mr. Rapoport has a reservation.

[[underlined]] W. J. Eck, of Washington, [[/underlined]] an executive of the Southern Railway, was the first passenger on the airline list, having reserved his passage back in 1930.

"I'll just fly up to Paris, then get back to Marseilles in time to come back on the clipper's first westward flight," he said. "It's just a holiday trip--I'll be away from America less than six days. I like to travel long distances and I can't get enough time away from my work to use any other means of transportation. My only disappointment is that I won't be able

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