Arthur Coles TAA Chairman

In January 1946, Treasurer Ben Chifley — with whom Coles had a close working relationship — asked him to become the first Chairman of the newly formed Australian National Airlines Commission (ANAC). It was a striking choice: as an advocate of free enterprise, Coles had publicly opposed the Government's 1945 push for a nationalised airline. He accepted anyway, formally taking up the position when the ANAC came into existence on 8 February 1946, and he was also was named chairman of British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines at the same time.

Coles insisted the new airline be run as a genuine commercial business, free from day-to-day political interference — a condition the Government accepted. He personally oversaw the recruitment of TAA's senior management, including General Manager Lester Brain, and in early April 1946 informed the Government that the Commission's preferred trading name would be "Trans-Australia Airlines."

With the end of World War 2, the Federal Government provided TAA with converted US wartime Douglas DC-3 aircraft, and TAA later procured its first pressurised airliners, built hangars, established a pilot training scheme, and opened a national network of offices — expanding the fleet to 35 aircraft by 1949. Coles chaired the tense ANAC meeting of 1 September 1946 at which the decision was made to bring TAA's launch forward by a month, famously telling his fellow commissioners, "I have news for you. We start next Monday" — the beginning of the frantic week that produced TAA's first flight on 9 September 1946.