The Air Mail Scandal is the name that the American press of the 1930s gave to the results of a meeting (the so-called Spoils Conference) of Postmaster General Walter Folger Brown and the executives of the top airlines, effectively dividing among them the air mail routes.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt became president, Alabama Democrat Senator Hugo Black set a committee to investigate those alleged improprieties. Following this investigation, the government cancelled all existing airmail contracts. On February 19, 1934, the United States Army Air Corps began flying US airmail.

The Air Mail Act of June 12, 1934 regulated the air mail business and dissolved the big holdings that brougth together airlines and aircraft manufacturers.

In the aftermath, United Airlines' president, Philip G. Johnson, was sacked and banned from the industry for several years.

References

• U.S. Centennial of Flight Commision: Airmail and the Growth of the Airlines
• History of United Airlines