Airways gambler

Press, 12 July 1980, Page 16

Airways gambler

By

WILLIAM SCOBIE,

“Observer,” London

In 1950, a 27-year-old aspiring boxer, Ed Daly, spent $50,000 he had won in a poker game to buy a rattletrap airline grandly named World Airways. California-based World Airways turned out a winner, “and I’ve gambled big ever since,” growls chairman Daly today. Now Daly is spinning the wheel of fortune again. For the last six months he has been shaking up the airline scene across the United States with the coast-to-coast fare wars. California-Hawaii for $/0. L.A.-New York for $OO. London-Boston for $2OO. Rivals have been undercut by $4OO or more. West Coast travellers queued for up to 13 hours for the Hawaii bargain. Telephone lines were-jam-med. The fares of competitors fell like autumn leaves.

World’s London-to-Bos-ton flight has admittedly risen to $3lO from June 18 but it is still, claims

Daly, “the lowest bookable, no-strings fare across the Atlantic.”

“Inflation-ravaged consumers,” he roars, “are grateful to us.” Why is the bearded, buccaneering Daly — famous for such escapades as his Vietnam “mercy flight” which almost came to grief when frantic refugees stormed the plane — doing all this? After all, as industry experts . note, World cannot be breaking even on some routes. .

Aides say “Crazy Ed” just loves a scrap. He wants to play Luke Skywalker to the giant carriers’ Darth Vader in these international sky wars. In fact World is in trouble and needs all the help a gimmick can give. A small line (1979 revenues of $165 million),

World is fighting back from a four-month strike by pilots and staff and from the earlier grounding of its DC-10 fleet after the American Airlines crash in Chicago last year. A firstquarter loss of $ll million wiped out its 1979 profit. Hence Daly’s war on the big boys. He has made unlikely schemes pay off before.

The five decrepit flying boats and two military cargo planes he bought in 1950 were parlayed into a prosperous charter line. Tight-fisted, domineering, un i o n-abhorring (“The company slogan is, “You’re fired ” says a pilot), Daly works gruelling hours, and expects aides to do likewise.

The story goes that “the old man” once saved money on a plane-purchas-

ing trip to London by sleeping in his rented limousine,. using it by day to visit bankers.

The Vietnam war brought World’s financial breakthrough. Income doubled and quadrupled as Daly shipped a stream of men and materials into South-East Asia. In the final days, he set up and paid for the famous mercy flight to Da Nang, landing hours before North Vietnam troops moved in. Chairman Daly snatched babes from • the ground a literally threw them through hatches. He fought off rioting troops, pistol-whipping one (his revolver had been emptied) who killed an old

woman. The jumbo, barely able to lift off with its load, rose with a body jammed in the landing gear, people clinging to the wheels. . Daly’s swashbuckler image in today’s California runs to a Lamborghini, a 503-acre ranch and two private planes. One, a Convair 440, is painted 14 shades of green, has a shamrock on the tail and a leprechaun on the door. No one need ask where his mother comes from. His second plane is a Douglas 823 Dragon once owned by Howard Hughes in his Jane Russell period. Daly likes to fly the “classic” prop plane to Africa, where he indulges a favourite relaxation, shooting things. He also enjoys raising Arabian horses, armwrestling with reporters and female company.