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Aviation History
1950
1950 - 1955.PDF
442 FLIGHT, 16 November 1950 THE WORLD'S AIR TRANSPORT Annual Review by LA.T.A.'s Director-General at First General Meeting to be held in United States WE have already referred briefly to some of the pointsmade by Sir William Hildred in delivering his annualreport on the activities of I.A.T.A. before the Asso- ciation's annual general meeting, which began at San Franciscoon October 16th. It is now possible to give a more detailed summary of the director-general's speech. The speech was delivered, incidentally, on the first occasionon which I.A.T.A.'s annual meeting has been held in the United States. Ten American airlines acted as hosts to the delegates,among whom Britain was represented by Sir Miles Thomas, chairman of B.O.A.C. (and I.A.T.A.'s president-elect for theforthcoming year), and by Lord Douglas of Kirtleside, chairman of B.E.A. On the opening day, Mr. Warren Lee Pierson, chair-man of T.WA, took office as president, succeeding in this capacity Dr. Albert Plesman, the president and founder ofK.L.M. Sir William Hildred prefaced his report with some remarkson the difficult atmosphere in which the work of I.A.T.A. was being conducted today. He quoted some philosophic reflectionsof Professor Gilbert Murray as being particularly apt in rela- tion to I.A.T.A.'s present part in world affairs: — ". . . far from the rising title of tolerance and humanism which was predominant 50 years ago, today the ebb tide had set in with a vengeance . . . the atmosphere of the world is inimical to ideas of internationalism. In many countriestolerant governments have been replaced by those which are illiberal beyond the worst dreams of an earlier generation.Any success which may attend the efforts of an international body today has an intellectual importance for the world out of all proportion to its own immediate practical value." Professor Murray, he said, had also stressed the need for a true concept of the ideal of freedom: " Our greatest necessity atthe present time is the establishment in international affairs of the rule of law based on formal constraint and on an unspoken recognition of what is right."Sir William laid special emphasis on the need for the Associa- tion to maintain good relations with governments, to earn theirgoodwill and to make them feel that I.A.T.A.'s role—not only in recommending rates and fares, but in all the financial, legal,technical and operational aspects of air transport—was a useful one, capable of relieving them of much tiresome and difficultnegotiation. He thought that I.A.T.A.'s relations with governments hadimproved considerably during the past four years and men- tioned in particular the South American administrators, whoseco-operation and courtesy he had found very encouraging dur- ing a recent trip to that Continent. On the subject of the implementation of Annex 9 to theChicago Convention (dealing with the facilitation of international procedures) Sir William reported excellent progress. Alreadyin line with the requirements of Annex 9 were the long-haul routes via the North Atlantic to London, Rome, WesternEurope and the Middle East, continuing to Singapore and Bangkok; the North Atlantic routes via Western Europe toSouth Africa and Australia; and the mid-Atlantic routes to Europe. " It is gratifying," he said, " that in so short a time somuch has been achieved in curtailing cumbersome clearance formalities." While he found that governments had been particularly co-operative, he criticized the attitude of many carriers who, he said, were often a long way behind their respective governmentsin their readiness to adopt the documents prescribed by the Facilitation Annex. I.A.T.A.'s facilitation programme was stillin its infancy and a great deal still remained to be done in achieving such long range objectives as customs-free airports,terminal facilities at international airports and a standard type of visa. Sir William dealt also with the relationships existing betweenthe management of I.A.T.A.'s member-airlines and their own staffs. He thought that in air transport, managements were asenlightened as in any industry. He pointed out that, to a greater degree than in any other enterprise, airline staffs hadto be "international-minded." In this connection he quoted Dr. Plesman: " It is the duty of every international companyto educate its personnel in progressiveness, international under- standing and a spirit of co-operation, which is of such greatimportance to the welfare of aviation. . . ." Sir William des- cribed the picture of a veteran airline pilot, sitting by his firesideat Christmas and receiving greetings from friends of all nationalities as a symbol which those irr the airline industrycould not forget. Enforcing the Rules Referring to I.A.T.A.'s new Enforcement Section, he said that the need for such an organization could not have been explained more appropriately than in a recent editorial in an American journal. " It's about time," it read, " that members took steps to put teeth in their own traffic, tariff and cargo rules, other- wise I.A.T.A. will disintegrate. . . . Let I.A.T.A. set up its inspection procedure, follow up every complaint, exercise dis- cipline when necessary and then let the loose talk now pre- vailing cease for good." Sir William said he was obliged to this American writer for having stated so bluntly what needed to be said. He hoped that the Enforcement Section would never need to be a highly expensive part of I.A.T.A.'s machinery. There was no room, time or money for smooth words and back-slapping and the problem was one which came under the heading of " relationships." If members kept their given word to their own colleagues I.A.T.A. had nothing to fear and the opportunities for good work would exceed their wildest dreams. Turning to the work of the Technical Committee during the past year, he hoped it would be possible to decrease the man- hours required from airline technical ex- perts in attending meetings of I.A.T.A. and similar organizations. The trend was becoming more and more towards regional meetings, which were especially necessary on the communications and operations sides, where full implementa- .; tion of standards for navigational aids ,: and communications facilities had not yet . Enjoying an open-air luncheon during the San Francisco Conference are (left to right) Lady Hildred, Lord Douglas (B.E.A.), Mme. Costa de Beauregard (Air France), Dr. Albert Plesman (K.L.M.), Mr. Clive Adams (B.E.A. American representative), Mrs. Adams, Sir William Hildred, Lady Douglas. ~T 1 \
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