AVIATION: Cut-Rate to Europe

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Into Washington National Airport last week flew a fat-bellied Boeing Stratocruiser, the first to be delivered to a commercial airline. With a Pan American Airways pilot at the controls, the plane had hopped from San Francisco in fast time (6 hrs. 22 min.) to keep a christening date with Margaret Truman.

While Pan Am's President Juan Trippe proudly looked on, Margaret smashed a bottle of champagne against the Clipper America. Pan Am, which expects to put the clipper into service within a few weeks, hopes to get 19 more of the double-decked, 75-passenger monsters by late summer. With them, said Trippe, he will have "sufficient equipment to provide low-cost tourist-class service to Europe and to the Orient." Foreign governments willing, Trippe would cut transatlantic tourist rates to $225 one way and $405 round trip (present cost: $350 one way).