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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 1155.PDF
23 August 1957 243 The Air League and Air Transport Special Committee's Proposals for Extensive Changes in British Commercial Aviation WE summarized last week the main recommendations ofthe special committee appointed last April by the AirLeague of the British Empire "to formulate a comprehen- sive air transport policy to ensure that this country shall not onlyattain a share of world air traffic corresponding to its prestige and its needs as a great commercial nation, but shall also be equippedwith the maximum reserves of air transport which can be available in case of war or similar emergency." The chairman of the com-mittee was Sir Miles Thomas, D.F.C., M.I.Mech.E., M.S.A.E., former chairman of B.O.A.C. and now chairman of MonsantoChemicals, Ltd.* The committee consulted members of the Services and theCorporations, scientists, aircraft manufacturers and designers, travel agents, the independent operators (including the BritishIndependent Air Transport Association), and "a considerable number of individuals having long experience in the air transportfield as economists or in other specialist capacities." The report begins by showing that the British share of worldscheduled capacity fell from 5.3 per cent in 1951 to 4.2 per cent in 1956. Furthermore, the rate of increase was only 62.4 per centcompared with the world average of 80.2 per cent. (The report, however, acknowledges B.E.A.'s rate of increase, on the same basis,of 144 per cent.) "It appears to us," says the report, " that it would be illogicalto assume that the existing system would necessarily be the best to deal with the large expansion of traffic expected." It could beargued that the Corporations could carry the expanding traffic by expansion of their fleets, but "we found grounds for doubting ifthis by itself is the soundest policy or the most efficient method of meeting the entire expansion."It had been suggested to the committee that there is an optimum size for an airline from the point of view of achieving maximumresults, and that the Corporations had now reached this point. The report includes Mr. S. F. Wheatcroft's graph showing therelationship between operating cost and the size of an airline, which demonstrates that no advantage of size is gained whenoutput exceeds 200 million capacity ton-miles. The committee had also been impressed by the prospect that two Corporations, ifleft to handle future traffic themselves, might in ten years' time be twice as large as all the United States domestic operators oftoday put together. The Corporations "may well in the course of a few years have reached a stage where their organizations willhave become unmanageably large." The committee points out that Britain's 21 private operators atpresent produce about 150 million c.t.m. per annum—about a third of the total production of the British air transport industry. Theyhave 700 pilots and a total fleet which provides the country with a commercial asset that cannot be questioned. But the independ-ents' business is mostly of a low-revenue type: in the charter field * The five committee-members were Mr. Ivor Bowen, C.M.G.,M.Sc, F.R.Ae.S. (Air League Council member and from 1947 to 1950 chief superintendent of the A. and A.E.E. at Boscombe Down; since1954 British Commonwealth representative in London of the General Precision Equipment Corp. of New York); Sir Wilfrid Eady, G.C.M.G.,K.C.B., K.B.E. (director of Richard Thomas and Baldwins, Ltd., the steel manufacturers); Mr. Dennis Handover, M.Inst.T. (air transportconsultant, formerly chairman of S.A.S.); the late Mr. R. V. Perfect (a director of Saunders-Roe); Air Chief Marshal Sir George Pine, K.C.B.,K.B.E., M.C., D.F.C., LL.D. (chairman of the Council of the Air League). The secretary of the committee was Mr. Frank Hillier, M.C.,secretary-general of the Air League. 65 per cent of business is trooping, which provides the principalsource of the independents' revenue. Furthermore, "We were informed that 80 to 85 per cent of the independents' traffic, carriedunder licence in the case of passenger traffic, and under Govern- ment contract in the case of trooping, is on a basis of three yearsor less, with a substantial majority of one year or less. This is clearly an impossible basis for any commercial operation." Thecommittee feels that the independents cannot long continue to exist under present conditions. It therefore suggests a short-term and a long-term policy.Immediate ways of improving the independents' position might be found in more "fetching and carrying for all the Services and otherGovernment departments." Much greater thought, the report states, could be given to the economic aspects of supply anddemand by air transport as opposed to the maintenance of exten- sive stores overseas. "We doubt whether Service thought in thisdirection has got much further than comparing the actual ton- mile cost of transit by air, as compared with the sea, ignoring suchconsiderations as that instead of provisioning spares on the basis of 100 per cent they could in many cases be provisioned on thebasis of 25 per cent if air transport were employed." An investi- gation into this "important matter" might lead to great economies. Next, more trooping traffic, half of which still goes by sea, could becarried by the independents. On the basis of recent experience the comparative costs of R.A.F. Transport Command and civil air transportmight be in the ratio of three or four to one in favour of the latter. The true role of Transport Command as conceived by the committee"is the provision of heavy aircraft for the movement of the strategic reserve and its equipment from the main overseas air base concerned tothe advanced air base to which it might have to be despatched for active service." As for the transport of personnel and equipment to the mainoverseas air base, this should be undertaken by civil air transport opera- tors with aircraft like the Britannia. As a step towards the long-term improvement, of the indepen-dents' position, some of the independent operators should be brought into partnership with the Corporations, on the lines of the Australianand French systems. It might be, for example, that on a particular route the Corporation concerned should be allocated 50 per cent of theanticipated increase in traffic, and that an independent operator should be assigned the remainder. There would be "no real grounds" for thefear that this might undermine the position of the Corporations. The C.A.B., points out the report, allocates more than one operator to oneroute as a matter of course, and Air France operates in conjunction with five independent companies. The result of the French policy—half the traffic for Air France on long-range routes and 60 per cent on the shorter routes—is that the French independents are able to providefor the future and have ordered first-line aircraft including big jets. No mention is made in the report of the likely resistance by B.E.A.and B.O.A.C. labour to any proposal that would give private enterprise a bigger share of traffic, except "there must be no question of anychanges within the Corporations which could dislocate their services or upset their staffs." "Nowhere," says the report in discussing the need for better co-ordination, "is there anybody specifically charged with the duty of watching, co-ordinating and fostering the growth and development ofthe British aviation effort as a whole." Furthermore the functions of the Air Transport Advisory Council contrast with those of the U.S.Civil Aeronautics Board which, before any question of regulation, is charged with the "encouragement and development" of U.S. air trans-port. The report submits that the essential approach is "encourage- ment and development first, regulation afterwards." And the approachto this great question "must not be allowed to rest on a mere idea of taking advantage of natural growth." The A.T.A.C., it is suggested,should have its terms of reference extended more along the lines of (continued on page 248) A model of the Mach 2-6 transport referred to in the report. Based on the narrow-delta, VTOL principle conceived by Dr. Griffith of Rolls- Royce, it would have a battery of light, high-efficiency lifting engines (58 in this model of a 44-seat project) and multiple tin-installation for forward propulsion (12 in this model). The essence of the idea is very low structure weight. A 135-tourist passenger machine of this type, suggests the Air League, could be built by 1970 to fly from London to New York in 2Vi hr. Gross weight would be "around 200,0001b, with a payload and fuel capacity of about half that weight." The project might cost the country £50 to £70 millions. "Flight" photograph
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