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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0503.PDF
QQQQQQOQOO NTHE EUROPEAN STATES// AIRLINE ASSEMBLY THE EUROPEAN OUTLOOK . . . mission could work, and reproduced in Fig. 2 is the diagrammatic layout showing the main features of my proposal for a regional organization for European air transport. The major points in the scheme are that the proposed Air Transport Commission would be an agency of the already existing European Civil Aviation Conference. The Commission would be brought into being by a European multilateral air agreement which could be further amended and added to by resolutions of the Conference. The multilateral would, in fact, become the statute book of European air regulation and the Conference would be the Parliament which made the laws. This flexible arrangement seems to have many advantages, not least that it would allow a start to be made in the study work of the Air Transport Commission without having to wait for complete agreement between the states on the precise nature of the system of economic regulation which might even- tually be adopted. The main functions of the proposed Air Transport Commission would be: (1) The study of European traffic-flows and the prepara- tion of plans for a more rational pattern of routes. (2) The con- sideration of I.A.T.A. agreements on the level of fares and rates with a view to forming an independent and Europe-wide opinion on their desirability. (3) The collection and publication of statis- tical and financial data on European airline operations. (4) The general co-ordination of various government activities already going on in Europe, e.g., facilitation and telecommunication work. FLIGHT, 18 April 1958 519 Fig. 2. Suggested regional organization for European air transport. In all these fields it would be the responsibility of the Air Transport Commission to make recommendations to the European Civil Aviation Conference and also directly to member-govern- ments. In the course of time these recommendations should come to have considerable force and, like the Air Transport Advisory Council in the United Kingdom, the Commission's de facto powers would become much greater than advisory. My proposed Air Transport Commission would be an agency manned by specialist personnel and in no sense a representative body. No question of the position of individual States therefore arises in connection with the Commission. The place for State representation would be the Civil Aviation Conference and major issues like amendments to the Multilateral Agreement would have to be made by unanimous vote. Other lesser matters could no doubt be settled by majority vote. The whole question of how European air transport may be regulated in the future is dependent upon the basis on which the authority would allot European routes. Economic efficiency could become accepted as the criterion of allotting routes and services. This is the major change which is now beginning to influence European thinking in all its various schemes for economic integra- tion. It is no more revolutionary a thought that some of the nations of Europe will eventually allow their own national airline to go bankrupt than that the nations of the Common Market accepted this possibility for much more major industries when they signed the Rome Treaty. Once this change in thinking has secured its place in European economic affairs the problem of regulating the future of the air transport industry will become a great deal easier. No doubt it will be many years before this happens and before, for example, the British will come to accept that if a cheaper and more efficient service from London to Rome can be provided by a German airline, then the British one ought to go out of business. But this sort of question is not likely to arise for many years. Our primary problems of economic regulation are: (a) to eliminate those protective practices which at present restrict the capacity that airlines may offer on the routes which they are already licensed to serve; (b) to direct the future expansion of European air traffic into a more intensive system of routes and thus enable the productivity of the airlines to be raised. These are quite modest objectives but they are of fundamental importance to the progress of the air transport industry. In European air transport affairs (as in other matters) it is easy to look back over the past few years and to bemoan the slowness of the rate of progress towards a more rational regulation of the air transport industry. But it is very encouraging that on the government side there has been the establishment of the European Civil Aviation Conference and, on the airline side, the creation of the Air Research Bureau. Both the E.C.A.C. and the A.R.B. have, in small ways, made important contributions to the better organiza- tion of the industry. Moreover, they form a firm foundation on which further developments may be based. What is needed in approaching the regulatory problems of European air transport is new enthusiasm, a ban on words like "liberalization" which have more emotional than economic con- notations, and a willingness to seek solutions which are aimed solely at creating a financially sound and rapidly expanding air transport industry. •;•• r. ,- -n ..•_....-.-.. u ~ • , •- The untapped potential: Any fine week-end or evening at London Airport Central brings hundreds of onlookers to this focal point of Euro- pean air transport opera- tions. Many succumb to the magic of the scene and re- solve there and then that their next holiday must be on the Continent—and by air. But "can I afford the fare?" is always the big question-mark.
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