History- (from website Tails Through Time)- As air travel numbers experienced major growth in the early 1950s, American Airlines was the first out of the gate with an announcement that it would begin nonstop transcontinental services between New York and Los Angeles once it had taken delivery of its Douglas DC-7C propliners. Eager to upstage American Airlines and its iconic head, C.R. Smith, Howard Hughes had TWA launch its own transcontinental nonstop service on the same route using its new Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellations. On 19 October 1953, Trans World Airlines' "Ambassador Service" Flight 2 departed Los Angeles for New York Idlewild and just barely got into New York under the federal eight hour crew limit at 7 hours, 55 minutes. The westbound Ambassador Service flight had to deal with prevailing winds at altitude and thus couldn't make the flight nonstop within 8 hours- a 15 minute technical stop was scheduled enroute at Chicago Midway to allow for a crew change but no local passenger traffic.

The following month American Airlines inaugurated its own nonstop "Mercury Service" DC-7C flights between Los Angeles and New York Idlewild on 29 November. As the DC-7C had a higher cruising speed than the Super Constellation, the eastbound LA-New York run was made easily in 7 hours, 15 minutes (a fact not lost upon American's marketing department, hence the name "Mercury Service"), but the westbound run from New York to LA couldn't be made within 8 hours. Despite over a dozen modifications to the DC-7Cs made by American's engineers which included tweaks of the Wright R-3350 radial engines to squeeze every bit of horsepower out of the engines, the DC-7Cs still couldn't beat the prevailing winds. American's pilot union repeatedly pointed this fact out, but C.R. Smith's influence in Washington left the issue unaddressed by federal regulators. The following year, federal regulators adjusted the time limit to allow the flight to be made legally and American's DC-7Cs blocked in at 8 hours, 15 minutes on a westbound nonstop.

Although TWA had reached an agreement with its Super Constellation pilots for overtime pay on the westbound nonstops to eliminate the technical stop for a crew change in Chicago, no such agreement existed with American and, following deadlocked negotiations, American's pilots went on strike in July 1954. Smith was furious but had no choice but to accept an agreement for overtime pay on the westbound Mercury nonstops that exceeded 8 hours. After a 24-day strike, American's pilots returned to work under new rules for transcontinental flights in excess of 8 hours.

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