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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 1326.PDF
AVIATION SOUTH AFRICA'S MAIN AIRPORT "THE final opening ceremony of Johannesburg's new airport at •*• Kempton Park, on the fringe of the Golden Rand, will be performed by the Minister of Transport, Mr. Paul Sauer, on Sunday, October 4th. Work on the airport—which came into full operational use on September 1st—began six years ago when it was officially named by Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery in commemoration of General Jan Christian Smuts. Ornamental gates bearing Smuts' name were then unveiled. By far the most ambitious airport in the African continent, the Jan Smuts is situated on a huge flat watershed in the veld, and will cost some £6,200,000 when the administrative and technical buildings are completed. Because of the altitude (6,000ft), the runways are exceptionally long. The main runway, running north/south, is 10,500ft and the two others intersecting it are 8,250ft, all with a uniform width of 200ft, and with overshoot strips. These international airlines are already using the airport: B.O.A.C., Air France, K.L.M., P.A.W.A., S.A.A., C.A.A., Qantas, El Al, S.A.S. and Deta (Portuguese). Another French airline, U.A.T. is expected to extend its Paris-Brazzaville route to Johannesburg, using Comets. The proving flight has been pro visionally fixed for mid-October. About 1,000 men are employed in the extensive workshops at the airport, where modern repair facilities have been installed. The technical area comprises approximately 9,700ft of tarmac roads, and 885,000 sq ft of concrete apron varying in thickness from 14 to 18in. The hangers have a width of 348ft and are 70ft high. The airport has replaced that at Palmietfontein, about 12 miles distant, which has been closed; a decision about its future has still to be made. B.E.A.'s ANNUAL REPORT T> ROB ABLY the frankest and most comprehensive annual report -"- of any airline in the world is that published by British European Airways. The latest edition, announced on Tuesday by Mr. Peter Masefield (in the absence of Lord Douglas, who as British representative was attending a meeting of the executive com mittee of I.A.T.A. in Montreal) covers the Corporation's activities during the financial year ended March 31st, of which the essential features were a large increase in traffic and a slight increase on last year's deficit of £ 1.42m. In 1952-53 B.E.A. flew 1,400,122 passengers—the largest number carried by any airline outside the United States. Of this total 56 per cent, or nearly lm, flew on international services and the remainder on domestic routes. On the basis of passengers carried, B.E.A. is thus the seventh largest airline in the world. B.E.A. OPERATING RESULTS SUMMARIZED Revenue Operating expenditure Operating loss Net loss Loss as percentage of expenditure Capacity ton-miles flown Load ton-miles flown Load factor Load factor required to cover total operating cost : Operating cost per C.T.M. 1 Traffic revenue per C.T.M. ' Traffic revenue per L.T.M. " Passengers carried : Available seat-miles * Revenue passenger-miles flown... ; Passenger load factor 1 Mail carried (short tons) i Mail ton-miles flown i Freight carried (short tons) Freight ton-milss flown ... i Revenue hours flown i Utilization per aircraft ) Aircraft mile flown \ Cost per revenue miles flown ... j Revenue per employee ... 1952-53 £13,128,080 £14,283,72-4 £1,155,644 £1,459,131 8.1 69,230,611 43,544,039 62.9 68.4 49.5d 43.8d 69.7d 1,400,122 578,013,390 372,966,170 64.5 6,289 2,541,209 14,328 5,261,659 171,883 1,512 hr 24,202,358 141.6d £1,535 1951-52 £10,817,687 £12,059,665 £1,241.978 £1,423,611 10.2 56,697,971 36,694,775 64.7 72.1 51.1d 44.2d 68.3 d 1,135,579 462,451.642 309,286,503 66.9 6,489 2,451,567 12.500 4,574,243 153,533 1,550 hr 21,594,151 134.0d £1,356 Per centage change + 21.4 -1-18.4 -7.1 + 2.5 -21.4 +22.1 + 18.7 -2.8 -5.1 -3.1 -1.4 +2 +23.3 + 25 + 20.6 -3.6 -3.1 + 3.7 +14.6 +15 + 12 -2.5 + 12.1 +4.4 + 13.2 JAN SMUTS AIRPORT, to be formally opened on Sunday, is briefly described in the opening paragraph. A Comet, seen as a speck half-way along the main runway, lends scale to this impressive strip—almost two miles long. New terminal buildings and part of the maintenance area (foreground) are also shown. The average passenger-journey, however, was only 266 statute miles and the average flight-time was 102 min—figures which accentuate the short-haul nature of B.E.A.'s traffic. The report quotes an interesting comparison of operations by various European airlines in 1951, showing that B.E.A. carried the greatest share of passengers—28 per cent, a proportion which is almost certain to have increased. In that year its passenger traffic was 1.9 times that of its nearest rival (Air France). There remain, however, four important routes on which B.E.A. still carries less than 30 per cent of the traffic offering—those from this country to Switzerland, Scandinavia, Holland and Belgium. The increasingly competitive quality of the Corporation's fleet of aircraft should ensure further gains on all routes. By the end of 1954 the fleet is expected to consist of 20 Elizabethans, 26 Viscounts, 38 Pionairs, 8 Pionair Leopards, 2 Pionair Freighters, In the twelve-month-period reviewed B.E.A.'s helicopters flew a total of 1,075 hr; the cost of these operations was £79,113, of which £72,133 was payable by the M.C.A. and M.o.S. During the year nine design studies based on the B.E.A. specification for a large helicopter were submitted to the latter Ministry. The report notes that the order for the Rotodyne "was of interest to B.E.A." and that discussions are in progress with the Bristol Aeroplane Co. regarding the Type 181 twin-rotor helicopter seating more than 60 passengers. It mentions delay in delivery of the existing Bristol 173, which will now take place next year. The more powerful Mk 3, which will be much more suitable for initial passenger carrying services, will not be ready until 1958, and the report draws attention to the need for a suitable rotor- plane with which to build up experience during this five-year period. "From the national book-keeping point of view," says the report, B.E.A.'s operations are made to appear less economic than they should by comparison with those of other national airlines. Representations to this effect have been made repeatedly to successive Ministers of Civil Aviation. It will be remembered that in the B.O.A.C. report, published a week earlier, Sir Miles Thomas revealed that the Corporation was asking for Treasury support towards the development of new British aircraft likely to achieve success in overseas markets after the State airline has borne a disproportionate share of introductory costs. To a lesser extent, perhaps, B.E.A. also faces this particular problem: expenditure on Viscount development is estimated at not less than £lm. B.E.A.'s main heart-cry, however, is that a high proportion of their annual expenditure finds its way back to the Exchequer— in the form of either fuel tax or landing fees. Low mail payments and the burden of maintaining unprofitable social services are additional factors contributing to the adverse picture shown by the annual balance sheet. At the beginning of last year, fuel tax was increased from Is 10+d to 2s 6d per gallon and B.E.A.'s contribution of £381,389 was thus £95,530 higher than it would otherwise have been. At 30d per gallon, the British domestic fuel tax is exceeded only in France and Belgium (where mitigating circumstances exist), and compares with an average rate of 5d in the United States. The average fee paid for each B.EjA. aircraft landing in this country was £4.1, compared with £3.5 on the Continent; the corresponding U.S. average is £1.3. Although short-haul services are now basically more expensive to operate than long routes, B.E.A.'s mail rate per tonne-km of 108d is 26d less than that paid to B.O.A.C. and, to quote a typical American operator, 67d below the rate received by Northwest Airlines. Regarding social services, the report says that the amount required to cover the costs incurred by their operation, including overheads, would be in the region of £300,000. These considerations apart, B.E.A.'s operations during the year reviewed were affected by other factors completely outside the
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