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airline chief , but still a Pilot at heart : he flew one of the inaugural trips himself .
In 1930 , Western Air Express absorbed Standard into its system , operating it as a separate division under Frye and Richter , but the affiliation was short-lived . American acquired Standard ’ s old route under Postmaster General Walter Folger Brown ’ s air mail reorganization plan , which also merged with Western and Transcontinental Air Transport . The combination formed TWA .
Frye and Richter went to work for TWA as vice presidents , but
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Frye was the one who really ran the airline as head of operations . After the government canceled the air mail contracts and TWA furloughed almost its entire workforce , Jack persuaded both Douglas and Curtiss Wright to temporarily hire the airline ’ s maintenance personnel until TWA was back in business . He truly was a compassionate man , as devoted to employee welfare as he was to the enhancement of flight safety .
Frye ’ s serious involvement with Hughes stemmed from an airplane order . TWA had signed for six Boeing Stratoliners ( Model 307 )— the world ’ s first pressurized
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commercial transport — but the contract was imperiled when John Hertz , an influential TWA director and 11 % stockholder , refused to allow the airline to make the required pre-delivery payments . Hertz , who knew little or nothing about airplanes , insisted that the revolutionary new airliners were too expensive and probably unnecessary . Faced with the cancellation of the Stratoliner contract and a Boeing lawsuit , Frye turned for help to a man he knew loved flying as much as he did : Hughes .
They had known each other casually from the time Hughes had purchased the original DC-1
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3 The scale of the Stratoliner is evident in this photograph of a graduating class of Flight Attendants in 1940 . The aircraft , NC19907 , was delivered to TWA on May 10 , 1940 . Each of TWA ’ s Stratoliners carried the name of a Native American tribe . This ship was named Zuni . // TWA MUSEUM ARCHIVES |