At times, it became difficult to get from point A to point B locally during the month of August 1981. Everything from planes, to trains, and buses.
There wasn’t much going on up in the skies, as The Daily Star of Aug. 12, 1981 reported, “Top executives of the airline industry endorsed the Reagan administration’s firing of 12,000 striking air controllers Tuesday but said turmoil in the airlines is costing them $30 million a day and will cause layoffs, pay cuts and disruption for at least a year.
“Meantime, trans-Atlantic traffic was curtailed on the second day of turmoil that threatened to become even worse over the weekend.”
It was rough and tumble at the times in the big airline industry, but for the small ones, opportunity knocked.
In that same Star edition, readers learned, “Oneonta’s Catskill Airways reported a dramatic increase in its charter flight business resulting from the national air traffic controllers’ strike.
“’From that point of view, the strike has been good to us,’ Catskill Airways Vice President Will Lunn said Tuesday. He cited that Catskill flies smaller aircraft than the major airlines as one reason for the increased business.
“’We can fly people into smaller airports that don’t have controllers like here in Oneonta,’ he said.”
One well known area customer got some help from Catskill Airways, as The Star of Aug. 4 reported, “Catskill Airways of Oneonta and the oldest airport in America combined to get Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan to Washington Monday despite the strike.
“Moynihan, spending the weekend in his home on Prosser Hollow near Pindars Corners, was called to Washington to vote on the Reagan Administration’s tax cut proposal.” Moynihan chartered a flight from Oneonta to College Park, Maryland.
Those still working in the major airlines didn’t have it easy. As The Star of Aug. 18 reported, “A Delhi native, working as an air traffic controller in New York City, said Monday she quit the striking controllers’ union nearly 10 years ago because of its militancy.
“Now, Sue Spina, an 18-year veteran controller, said she was jeered and threatened by one-time friends as she crossed a picket line for the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) on the way to work.”
Conditions weren’t especially good for the railroad industry around our area, but things were looking better, as The Star of Aug. 26 reported, “Millionaire rail baron Timothy Mellon’s partner said Tuesday plans to buy the struggling Delaware and Hudson Railroad should be completed in the next few weeks.
“’Our plans are going very well,’ said David A. Fink, Mellon’s partner in Guilford Transportation, Inc. of Durham, Conn.
“Mellon and Fink stopped in Oneonta Tuesday during a three-day tour of Northeast railroads covering from Bangor, Me. to Buffalo.”
Buses locally weren’t immune from concerns, as Star readers learned on Aug. 13, “City officials are worried that Ronald Reagan’s austere budget will trim money used to run the Dial-a-Bus system.
“The Reagan administration wants to cut all federal money used to run local mass transit systems, according to city Transportation Director Edmund F. Shultis.”
At the same time, The Star reported that the city took delivery of three new 16-passenger buses for the Dial-a-Bus system.
With all the transportation uncertainties among us that year, it’s not certain how he got there, but The Star of Aug. 17 reported, “Steven Heffner, 15, of Oneonta will be among the first people to see live photos of Saturn transmitted from Voyager 2 this week.
“The Oneonta High sophomore will be traveling to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. as a reward for being among 30 winners in a national essay contest sponsored by the Explorers Club of New York City.
“During his five-day stay in California, he will get to visit the Pasadena Planetary Festival, rub elbows with Cornell University astronomer Carl Sagan at a black tie dinner, lunch at Hughes Aircraft, and take classes at California Institute of Technology.”
On Saturday, carnivals galore in the summer of 1941.