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Aviation History
1934
1934 - 1009.PDF
SEPTEMBER 27, 1934. FLIGHT. IOi'I COMMERCIAL ^Z\V/AT/ON AIRLINES AIRPORTS THE DANCERS OF MONOPOLY Air Transport, Railways, and the Lesson of the Roads . " By DONALD H. SMITH, Assoc.Inst.T. I.V this article, which is written by a member of the staff of our sister journal, " Motor Transport," the claim is made that,at the present stage of commercial aviation, any form of monopoly ownership will be bad for aviation as a whole. 1 hehistory of road transport is briefly reviewed and lessons gleaned which may, or may not. apply with equal force to transport While we do not necessarily agree with the writer's opinions, they are interesting enough to deserve attention. One fact overlooked is that, whatever sheer enthusiasm may produce, commercial aviation, in order to be a commercial proposition, must be backed by relatively unlimited resources. The greater the capital the greater, proportionately, will be the returns, and the air services may then be still further improved. . . . An idealist would rightly claim that the perfectly complete airline company would be entirely international with lines spanning the whole world. Then, and then only, would aviation have come into its own. That would indeed be a super-monopoly which, in honest hands, might change the whole future of mankind. IT appears that there may be all the making of troublefor* someone in the question of internal air transportand participation therein by the railway companies. For some time air transport in this country must be of the luxury type of passenger travel, while it is not likely that goods transport will extend beyond that which road haulier- would class as "parcels" or "smalls." Never- theless in recognisably limited spheres air transport will become increasingly useable and there should be a profit- able return to those who are able to operate it, where traffic exists or where traffic can be created by the institu- tion of a service. Enthusiasm and the Future The need of the moment, therefore, is for men with the vision to see the need, to create the facilities where the need will follow, and to go forward in face of difficulties and small profits with the true pioneering spirit. Above all they must be imbued with the form of enthusiasm that refuses "to measure success purely by cash dividends. No one can predict with any real accuracy the future of internal air transport, just as, thirty years ago no one could with certainty, have predicted the present day uni- versality of the motor bus and the lorry in the bulk trans- port of passengers and goods. Much motor vehicle pioneering was done not so much by those who foresaw what exists to-day, but by those who worked to develop something that they felt to be good in itself. The same type of men have pioneered air transport. As vet both the operator and the customer of air transport are'pioneers, and the average person engaged on the oper- ating side is usually more interested by the fact that he is flying usefully than that he is producing great financial returns If however, he is making a sufficient return to attract'the'interest of a big undertaking with enormous capital it must be remembered that capital has no sou with which to-be enthusiastic. Reasonably enough^capita requires a return, and the return is an end in itself, whether it be the result of operating aeroplanes or of running steam me railway companies enjoyed a transport monopoly and then awoke to find that they were being beaten by road haulage. Yet the railway companies were among the earliest operators of road motor vehicles in this country. The plain fact is that in those early days they touched the motor vehicle with a dead hand. Their guiding spint, bred and nourished in monopoly, blessed (or cursed) by almost boundless financial resources, hedged in by laws- restrictive may be, but protective-was devoid of any enthusiasm or imagination, incapable of any responsiveness to the unconventional, and having no ideals. Despite close knowledge of transport requirements, the railway fabric was rocked to its foundations by the energy of independent road hauliers. What happened? It was too late to meet the rival on level terms, so every possible string, legal and financial, was pulled. The bus companies, being more consolidated than the haulage operators, were bought, or large interests were secured. Then came the persistent lobbying which resulted in the Traffic Acts of 1930 and 1933, whereby the operations of municipal under- takings and haulage concerns, nor to mention those bus companies themselves partly owned by the railways, were cramped. Meanwhile, many bus and lorry operators were put out of action. Manufacturers of vehicles experienced a notable slowing in the normal expansion of their businesses, and to a great extent progress in design slowed its tempo. It is true that the transport Diesel engine was developed, but mainly because its economic advantages made it almost the despairing hope of the municipalities and the independent operators, staggering under legal and fiscal restrictions. Not one of the railway-influenced bus com- panies, incidentally, helped in the development of the road Diesel probably because the technically responsible offi- cials of big undertakings are seldom encouraged to make experiments that may not be successful in the eyes of directors. Monopoly can be Deadly In this rapid outline of recent transport history the lesson stands out clearly. The railways can possess a cold and deadly hand. They have no prescriptive right to a transport mono- poly but their controlling forces assume one. Road trans- port however, shook them very badly, although by effec- tive wire-pulling they have now succeeded in slowing down, but not stopping, the normal development of road transport and road vehicle design. ' , , , a. r iU Air transport has not yet disturbed the traffic of the railways to any great extent, nor is it likely to do so for many years. But obviously there is a tendency to get in on the ground floor" just in case it does. That ten- dency, however, is not inspired by an enthusiasm for avia- tion as such, and therein lies the danger. Most present-day air transport concerns are blessed with unlimited enthusiasm and limited resources, but the many independent operators make for a genuine endeavour and competition among inventors and aircraft makers to pro-
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