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Aviation History
1936
1936 - 2047.PDF
ii4 FLIGHT. JULY 23, 1936. PEACE or WAR? The Booking Anomaly as Seen Through the Eyes of an Operator : Some Interesting Facts and a Solution for the Problem By RICHARD CARVETH [This article, the opinions in which are not necessarily held by Flight arrive J, interestingly enough, after the leader on p. 104 had been written. The ideas expressed and the facts given are sufficiently interesting to merit publication, particularly as the writer, as might be imagined, is ultimately concerned with the business of air transport.] N EITHER public nor private protests have caused the lifting of what can only be called a ban on passenger bookings for many English air lines. This ban is placed by an institution "known as the Railway Clearing House, which acts for all the railway companies, and there are those who say that, commercially, it is perfectly fair to cripple the trade of your rivals and that, in any case, it is not a ban. 'Ihe Railway Clearing House says, in effect, to all the big gest travel agents, " Book for these new air companies if you like, but you will lose the enormous and valuable railway business you now have." The big agencies thus have the same freedom of action as a man with a highwayman's pistol at his brow. He need not give up his watch and chain unless he wishes to do so. In fact, a visit or a 'phone call to a leading agency in London usually results in a profession ot ignorance or lack of interest m certain English firms, but an anxiety to book the passenger by, for instance, Imperial Airways, or by any one of the regular subsidised foreign air lines. There are routes, notably to Scandinavia, where British air enterprise has been long overdue, but where this summer, thanks to British Airways and British Continental Airways, the civil air ensign is to be seen daily at every airport along the route. British people would prefer to travel British if they knew that they could do so, but when they enquire they are offered the foreign lines or nothing. If they are knowledgeable folk and press for such travel they are told that nothing can be done about it. One of the air companies thus penalised has Government support in the form of a subsidy and mail con tracts, and therefore everv passenger deflected from that com pany is a source of money lost to the taxpayer, for without the big agencies an air travel company can never become self- supporting as things are to-day. The plight of the other com pany, unsupported by Government, but, nevertheless, play ing an important part in the development of British civil aviation, is even worse. Prestige Abroad Another point, besides heart-breaking loss of revenue on the Scandinavian and other routes operated by these two British companies, is the loss of prestige all over the Con tinent occasioned by the fact that British machines run almost empty, whilst those of competing foreigners are fully booked. People on the Continent simply know that even the British do not fly in British machines and conclude that foreign air travel must be superior. Tell the average Dutch, German, Dane or Swede that it is the whole might and power of the collective British railway companies which causes British aeroplanes, even those of a Government-supported com pany, to fly empty and that it is the same powerful combine which fills foreign aircraft flying from England and see what sort of answer you will get. So much for Scandinavia. Let us examine another case, that of the North of England service from Liverpool, via Don- caster, to Holland and beyond. For two years, to our national shame, this line, a by no means unimportant one in Air Ministry eyes, has been run exclusively by the pushful Dutch. This year British Continental Airways are running the line on a fifty-fifty basis with K.L.M. Big north of England travel agencies will book for the foreign line, but not for the British, and thus the situation is beyond the wildest dreams of Beachcomber or the rest of the nonsense experts. The same incredible handicap confronts every British air company operating to the Continent, and the "embargo holds good also for internal air lines, except, of course, those of Railway Air Services. The attitude of the railways towards civil aviation is the same as that taken towards another rival form of transport— the road coach. Aviation, potentially, is an even more serious rival to the railways than road transport, and it is difficult to blame them for using tools ready to their hand, to prevent their first-class passengers from being stolen away and placed in luxury coaches or luxuriously appointed air liners. The rail-versus-road dispute was, however, a family affair whereas, with aviation, internal routes excepted, the position is very different. It is often asked why the foreign subsidised companies, Air France, K.L.M., D.L.H. and the rest were excepted as well as Imperial Airways, from the embargo The answer is simple. A number of years ago the Railway Clearing House tried to place the embargo en the foreign companies, forgetting that one end of an air line to the Con tinent necessarily lies abroad. What would the French Dutch, German and other governments have done in the way of reprisals if ninety per cent, of the air companies' revenues from England had been suddenly cut off ? At present the position is that the British Government has made no attempt—at least, that anyone has heard of—to change this Gilbertian, and at the same time, tragic state of affairs, and that the Railway Clearing House turns a deaf ear to all appeals. If the Government cannot even protect its '' chosen instrument,'' the subsidised British Airways, it is unlikely to stir a finger on behalf of struggling private enter prise, however deserving. "Air Bookings, Ltd." There is a remedy, of course, but it needs both capital and common sense to bring it into being, and the former is mere readily obtainable in aviation than the latter. If all those under the ban combined to form a subsidiary company to book air passages, and if the business were properly organised, the embargo would probably be swiftly broken. Visualise a striking building in the heart of London, run on the very best and most modern lines, not staffed with disgruntled old men or young, flashily ^dressed clerks, but with brisk young men in the civil aviation type of uniform. It would be open day and night, and an 'appropriate name for it would b? " Air Bookings, Ltd.," which title would be prominently displayed in vividly illuminated lettering. Tt would do much business after 5.30 or 6 p.m., when the agencies close, and its immense advantage would be that bookings could be made there for all lines, British or foreign, without distinction. It is hard to imagine firms like Imperials, Air France, or K.L.M. refus ing to carry passengers taken by " Air Bookings, Ltd.," and there is no doubt that such a central bureau, properly run, would soon become a London air passengers' rendezvous and much valued business would be lost to the leading travel agencies whose remedy would lie in bringing pressure to bear on the Railway Clearing House-Instead of remaining supine, as at present. Specialisation always pays, and if the efficiency and politeness, for which air transport companies are already famous, were strictly observed in the new booking centre and if, as would be the case, really reliable information and intelligent assistance to travellers were given, such an oflice would compare very favourably indeed with the average travel agency. War is war, and Railway Clearing House has aske for it and has compelled the agencies to join the combat. A counter-attack which would have a shattering effect on the enemy would be to offer to book passengers a! per cent, instead of 10 per cent., and at 2\ per cent, instead 0 5 per cent, on Empire and Eastern routes. That, and a rner hint that offices would be opened in the provinces quite %™?°T would cause the eventual co-operation between rail and ai • The Best of Both N July 13. Imperial Airways made a flight which may be from ia -) the first of a series. A D.H. 86 picked up passengers; 1 ° the Queen Mary at Cherbourg, in the morning and^1 lev , ^ Paris, Zurich and Vienna, to Budapest. According to fi ^ similar connections will be arranged for the Aquitama a Berengaria for various other towns in Europe.
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