Every Sunday, "Back in the Day" looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar.

The whack of a gavel in the Ilikai’s Pacific Ballroom on the morning of Feb. 15 will resound far into the era of the jumbo jets and supersonic transports heading our way in the 1970’s.

That sound will set in motion two years of proceedings which should remold U.S. commercial air service over the Pacific into the shape it will take for 15 years or more.

Wielding the gavel will be Robert L. Park, a 48-year-old attorney who has served with the Civil Aeronautics Board since 1948.

He is the CAB’s hearing examiner for its Docket 16242 — the new Trans-Pacific Air Route Cast.

Assembled around the conference table facing Park will be attorneys and master-minds of the 18 airlines which are seeking new Pacific operating rights.

Also on hand will be a battery of 30 witnesses for the State of Hawaii, the City and County of Honolulu and the Chambers of Commerce — plus spokesmen for the interests of Guam, Samoa and the Trust Territory.

For the following two to four weeks, Park will listen at the Ilikai to their testimony and cross-examination as to Hawaii’s air transportation needs and those of the rest of the Pacific.

Then the stage will shift to Washington where more months will be consumed as each of the airlines presents its arguments.

The case is acknowledged to be the most complex and hotly contested in CAB history.

The stakes will run into hundred of millions of dollars in future corporate revenues to the carriers and immeasurable added convenience to the traveling public.

Applicants include not only 10 of the nation’s 11 trunk carriers, but also one supplemental, three regional, three all-cargo and Pan American World Airways, the largest U.S. international operator.

The trunks are American, Braniff, Continental, Delta, Eastern, National, Northwest, Trans World, United and Western.