Word: sedta
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...German-affiliated Scadta line. Chief lines still operating in South America with direct or indirect German connections: Brazil's Condor (10,000 miles extending into Argentina and Chile), Vasp (1,200 miles) and Varig (940 miles); Bolivia's Lloyd Aero Boliviano (3,000 miles); Ecuador's Sedta (900 miles...
...jittery U. S., Sedta is as sinister as her late sister Scadta. Recently she has sought (unsuccessfully) to extend service to 1) Colombia, 2) the Galápagos Islands,† which, though sparsely inhabited and commercially impotent, are located strategically near the Panama Canal, 3) the jungles of eastern Ecuador, from which she could easily connect with Lufthansa-owned Condor's penetration line in western Brazil. Her Junkers JU52s (used as troop transports in Belgium, The Netherlands) could fly from Ecuador to the Canal Zone in four hours or less...
Last fall the State Department, finding Ecuador unwilling to follow Colombian example, replied to Sedta in kind. Dangling a reported $180,000-a-year post-office subsidy, it hooked reluctant Pan American-Grace Airways into setting up a rival service...
Result: an old-fashioned rate war. Last month Sedta established domestic airmail service, charged 80 centavos (about 25?) per five grams. A few days later, Panagra cut the price to 45 centavos. Last week came Sedta's rebuttal, devastating and unanswerable: they would carry mail free within Ecuador's borders...
...this week it was clear which way the wind sock was pointing. If Panagra is to keep her foothold in Ecuador, earn the right to buy out Sedta's operating permit, she (and Washington) must throw as much money into Ecuador's winds as Adolf Hitler...