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Aviation History
1949
1949 - 1817.PDF
FIJCHT, 3 November 1949 561 CIVIL AVIA NEWS FOR HILLY CHILE : Three of the six stmdird 8-11 seater D. H. Doves ordered by Linea Aerea National for operation on feeder services in the Santiago and Tierra del Fuego areas of mountainous Chile have already been despatched by sea. The aircraft- one of which is seen in flight above—have no spe:ial equipment and are fitted with normal Marconi radio installation. EAST AFRICAN CONTRACT UNDER a year's contract with the Overseas Food Corpora-tion—the Government-sponsored organization responsible for the groundnuts scheme—which expired on October 31st, 1949, Hunting Air Travel, Ltd., carried 1,252 passengers to East Africa and 728 from East Africa to London. The cost to the O.F.C. per head during that period averaged slightly over /70; if each aircraft had been filled to capacity the cost would have been ^63 6s 8d. In a tender for continuation of the contract, Hunting's quoted a lower figure, £59 18s, for each passenger if each aircraft was filled, but, with an average of the guaranteed minimum of 20 the figure was £63 18s per head. Some extra charge was to be made for onward carriage to two of several remote destinations in East Africa. Airwork and other operators are believed to have made similar tenders. It is understood that B.O.A.C. have obtained the contract for the current year at, it is said, £j2 10s per head to all destinations. It is not known whether the Corporation will fly O.F.C. passengers on scheduled Solent services or whether special charter flights will be made. The latter is unlikely, however, so that assuming the regular four-a-week flying-boat service to Dar-es-Salaam will be used and onward transport is provided by the East African Airways Corporation in its re- cently acquired Dakotas, it would seem that the Solents have been flying at an unnecessarily low load factor—in other words, that the frequencies have been too high. In this con- nection it is not without interest that in the Corporation's annual report for 1948-49 an operating cost of 58s 9d per capacity ton-mile was quoted. It was suggested in a leading article in Flight of October 20th that the Corporation's capacity exceeded by too great a margin the number of revenue pas- sengers flown, as a result of increasing frequencies instead of opening new routes. The Corporation's quotation of ^72 10s per head compared with the non-privileged rate of £146 per head will contribute little towards improving the cost per load ton-mile and nothing towards improving the cost per capacity- ton-mile. HELICOPTER NIGHT MAILS A SIX-MONTH contract for a regular helicopter night-mailservice between the main-line railway centre at Peter- borough and Norwich has been placed with B.E.A. by theG.P.O. This follows the success of the experimental night services which, carrying dummy mail, were flown in February D 3 i. .. _ and March this year over the same route at 93 per cent regu-larity, and also that of the day service which, with actual mail, was flown for three months during the summer in 1948. Thenew service, which commenced operation on October 17th, must also be regarded largely as an experiment. W/C. R. A. C.Brie is in charge of the Corporation's Helicopter Unit. LONDON-PARIS EXCURSIONS July 29th Air France and B.E.A. introduced a £10 returnfare for passengers travelling to London or Paris between 2200 and 0800 hr (in effect, by the last and first service eachday). As from October 30th this concession has been extended to include services on the same route for both airlines butbetween the hours of 1900 and 0900. B.E.A. now fly four flights daily at the excursion rate. Air France fly three services fromLondon on week-days and two on Sundays at the lower rate, and four from Paris on week-days and three on Sundays. In order to connect London passengers with Air France long-distance services one flight is made to Orly each day and that aircraft returns to London during the off-peak period. Thisextra service from Orly conveniently connects with London for those passengers returning to Paris from the long-distanceroutes—a fact which explains the apparently rather unbalanced frequency in Air France excursion services. K.L.M. PROFIT IN these days, when mention of a profit in an airline reportis a noteworthy occurrence, it is interesting to see that K.L.M. has again succeeded in keeping its annual accounts"in the black," the net profit for 1948 being recorded as 173,000 guilders (approximately £16,000). The fact wasrevealed in the recently published annual report for the year ended December 31st, 1948, and a 4 per cent dividend isbeing paid on 4 per cent cumulative preference stock and certain priority shares. Revenue from both passenger and freight services showedincreases of 56 per cent and 88 per cent respectively over the figures for 1947. Receipts from mail also increased by 9 percent and from special flights by 49 per cent; total revenue from all operations was improved by 43 per cent from105,671,000 guilders in 1947 to 151,635,000 guilders in 1948. Operating expenses remained almost unchanged at 19,670,000guilders, but in spite of an increase in the cost of fuel and
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