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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 0492.PDF
FLIGHT APRIL 3RD, 1947 American Newsletter Timetables and Prestige : Promising Impossibilities : Red Tape at Airports : Politics and the Aircraft Industry I WOULD, in all humbleness, like to make a suggestionto the international airlines. It is about their time-tables, and although I don't doubt that it is a sub- ject which must have come up for consideration many times before, it is an idea which I believe has some psycho- logical merit. Why must a transatlantic timetable set down not only a specific hour for departure (which is perhaps reasonable) but also a definite hour and minute of arrival? It doesn't make sense. Everyone knows that the chances of getting off from, say, LaGuardia at exactly 2.30 p.m. are slim, yet how much more remote are the chances of arriving at Paris, or Heathrow, or Amsterdam at exactly the specified minute the fol- lowing day? Once a flight is off schedule, and goodness knows there are enough hazards to throw it off, the company has lost some of its prestige in the eyes of the passengers. Surely nobody cares that much exactly what time on Friday afternoon they leave LaGuardia (obviously they must be told a specific time to report at the airline terminal with their baggage, when they can be advised of the timetable that they should follow), and equally they don't really mind not knowing the exact minute they will reach their destination on Saturday. The steamship com- panies don't give a docking time until after they sail, and no traveller with any experience of air transport (and I say this with both feeling and regret) will make further connections at the other end with so little time to spare that he or she must know—and be sure of—the minute of landing. (They don't come that naive these days!) So, instead of the present optimistic hours-and-minutes timetables, why can't we have " Airline booking office 12.30 p.m., Friday, arriving London, Saturday." That's all I would want to know anyway. And what's more, the operations staff and the pilots would have lots of variations in time available for their flight plan, without feeling all the time that some passenger with nothing better to do is going to kick up a fuss because they didn't leave at the right- time, or arrive exactly on schedule. And there are some of those about, too, as any traffic man will tell By 'KIBITZER country has a monopoly in time-wasting, in red tape, or even in rudeness. I have, in the past, been pushed around as much in England as I have here or in France, and while nobody in his Tight mind would dare to try and hold the proverbial candle to the Latin races once they get going in this respect, there is plenty of room for im- provement everywhere. Other, and more international, groups are also trying hard to make life less baneful for the air traveller. In Montreal P.I.C.A.O. is casting its omnipotent eye on the problem, and I.A.T.A. and the F.A.I, are both developing programmes of reform which should, in time, give some sort of result. It will be a wonderful day when one can fly from Paris, to London, to New York, to Mexico City, to Panama and down to Rio without once being in a situation that results in an undue secretion of adrenalin or bile. FREE ENTERPRISE "ANY members of the aircraft industry here, em- ployers and employees, are turning anxious eyes on the new 80th Congress. Controlled for the last 14 years by a Democrat majority, the pendulum has now made its inevitable swing, and the Republicans are in the political saddle. These news letters are no place in which to go into the ideological or political backgrounds of such a change, but it is essential, if we are to understand develop- ments here, to realize the fundamental differences in out- look between the two major American political parties. Unless we do so, the changes that are made or the laws that are passed or the things that are said will be meaning- less to us, and as our future, quite apart from the single field of aviation, is inexorably bound up in this country, such ignorance*is not only inexcusable but dangerous. By and large it is safe to say that the majority of the leaders of the aircraft industry over here voted the Re- publican ticket as did "big business" generally. In the same way the mass of the aircraft workers probably voted for the Democrats. The difference between the two parties, therefore, if translated into terms of English poli- M you. Having thrown that one into the arena I shall^" tics (an almost impossible and highly misleading task) -be told, when I next report at the airline terminal building that the flight has been cancelled! (Later: It was.) LIGHTENING AIRPORT PROCEDURE would be to describe the Republicans as the Conservative Party and to consider the Democrats as representing a modified version of Labour. But (and here is one of the paradoxical features nor- mal to this country, and which make it so dangerous toT HERE are definite signs over here that such august try to forecast events) once in power there is every indi-bodies as the Customs, the Public Health, and Im- ' " •- — - -• - - migration authorities are beginning to realize that Aviation is the Coming Thing. Aided by representatives of the Civil Aeronautics Board and other Federal officials, a committee is enquiring into delays and inconveniences at LaGuardia Airport. An endeavour is being made to cut through the mass of red tape that surrounds not only the arrival of the passenger but of the aircraft as well. Such things as a reduction in the paper work necessary to clear the aircraft, the possible increase in the value of goods permitted to be imported, alteration in the method of collecting the head-tax, waiving of requirements for in-transit visas, and simplification of Income Tax forms for outgoing aliens are also on the agenda. These are quite apart from painfully obvious and long overdue increases in staff, increases which are now pro- posed for most of the international airline terminals throughout the country. All of these innovations will be welcome, and the idea might be extended to the air- ports of other countries as well. Not that any one cation that the Republicans may favour legislation which will have, in the end, a somewhat detrimental effect on the aircraft industry. True, they will never lower the flag of " Free, Enterprise and Competition," but there are signs that they may cut the U.S. Army Air Corps budget—and they are already suggesting sweeping enquiries into aviation legislature and the series of airline accidents. A powerful political group is still fighting to have Pan American Airways recognized as the Governmental chosen instrument, a move that would penalize the other American international operators, and which would be resisted by them tooth and nail. There are other politicians who feel that the Bermuda agreement was unsatisfactory and should be reviewed. Furthermore, and perhaps more seri- ous, there is every indication that the new Congress will not only crack down on Labour's future demands but may well endeavour to withdraw some of the benefits thev have so hardly won during the last ten years. If this is done, Labour unrest will surely follow, with a falling-off of production as its inevitable aftermath. •
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