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Aviation History
1936
1936 - 2033.PDF
io4 FLIGHT. JULY 23, i936 The Booking Anomaly FROM time to time Flight has referred to the unfair and even ridiculous state of things by which only two—or, by arrangement, three—of this coun try's air line companies may profit by the facili ties offered by the big booking houses. Yet, for very good reasons of "live and let live," these houses can take bookings for all the bigger foreign companies. The matter has been brought to a head since the open ing of British Scandinavian services. Whereas the booking offices can issue tickets for the foreign com panies which operate over this or a similar route, they are not permitted, in their agreement, to do so for the two (soon to be three) companies of our own nationals. These must manage as well as they can with their own connections. Originally it was always supposed that membership of I.A.T.A. permitted entry into the select circle of thos; of whom the big travel agencies had "heard," and when the two companies which operate to Scandinavia were elected to the Association evetyone imagined that thev would automatically join that circle. Not a bit of it. So far we have not mentioned the quite considerable number of other internal air line companies which arc- in a similar position. In many ways their los-es am even greater, and unless the ban is lifted it would seem as suggested by a contributor on page 114, that their hope will only lie in active co-operation to the point of running their own air travel agencies. This is an idea which, in any case, has a great deal to recommend it The majority of people would probably take malicious pleasure in a triumph of the sufferers without help or encouragement from the mighty. Public Confidence In the meantime the travelling public must remain largely in ignorance of the services on which they might travel. Even if this public were aware of the existence of such services, it is an undoubted fact that people prefer to carry out all their business of money-changing end ticket-purchasing through one office. The railways can hardly be blamed for watching their own interests by refusing to modify their agreements with the agen cies, but the question is: What are their interests? Many people, even in a hard business world, have di= covered that it pays to cast one's bread upon the waters. The transport interests concerned are surely big enough to be able to afford to study the comfort and conveni ence of the travelling public, even at the cost of an ex tremely slight, and probably temporary, loss of custom. Their future depends upon the confidence of this public. * • •• ••••• •••• • •::: •...•,•. SEAFARER : The frst machines of a batch of Supermarine Stranraer flying boats will soon be seen at Southampton. This is the latest version of the prototype, with 840 h.p. Pegasus Xs in place of the earlier Ills, and three-bladed ¥airey airscrews.
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