Transocean Airlines - The First Aviation Conglomerate

The First Aviation Conglomerate

Known throughout the industry as the flying airline president, Nelson was the only top executive of a major airline during the late 1940s to hold transport pilot ratings. He spent much time away from his desk in search of business or visiting Transocean's outposts, all the while keeping an eye out for profitable enterprises to add to his ever expanding international business empire, or airplanes to add to the fleet.

Soon after taking to the skies in 1946, Nelson began to expand into other areas. By the mid-1950s and after acquiring several subsidiary businesses, some of the men closest to Nelson began to express concern that perhaps Transocean had over-diversified its resources and that the company was in danger of decline. From its inception in 1946 until as late as 1959, Transocean enjoyed success in most of its endeavors. The airline and its divisions often received commendations from both military and civilian groups for its contributions to aviation.

A crew once left Oakland, California for Taiwan in a DC-4 loaded with 12,000 pounds of gunpowder for General Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalist Chinese Army, then ferried the airplane to Hong Kong to pick up a load of Chinese cedar chests and fly them west to Rome, Italy. Within hours of the delivery of the cedar chests, the airplane departed full of Italian seamen bound for New York to rendezvous with an ocean freighter.