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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 0730.PDF
13 March 1959 365 BRITANNIA SPARES SERVICE TWO spares kits for Bristol Britannias, each consisting of overfifty assemblies and component parts connected with the hydraulic and cabin-air conditioning systems, have been suppliedby Avica Equipment Ltd. at the company's own expense and were recently dispatched by sea to Canada. They are to be sited atVancouver, where there is the largest maintenance unit for Britannias in the North American continent, and which is themost favourable position for aiding the six Britannias operated by C.P.A.L. In the near future, a further spares kit will be positionedat Havana. This arrangement springs from a recent suggestion by Mr.Peter Masefield, managing director of Bristol Aircraft Ltd., that firms connected with the Britannia should supply an efficientafter-sales and spares service. A further three kits are to be held at the Avica works, Hemel Hempstead, to meet requirements onthis side of the Atlantic. THE INDUSTRY ON THE UPGRADE A LL the signs are pointing towards a recovery in the air trans-**• port industry. Travel agents in Britain and the U.S. are handling an unprecedented volume of bookings for foreign travel.These bookings provide a particularly useful measure of things to come (.exactly a year ago Flight based a forecast of reduced trafficon the fact that enquiries were being received by agents but the number of actual reservations was falling). An authoritative recent forecast is that of Mr. William Hogan,executive vice-president (finance) of American Airlines. He has calculated that the American domestic trunk carriers will increasetheir revenues this year by 10-15 per cent over the 1958 level. For his own company he foresees an even more rapid increase, 20 percent, bringing annual revenue up to $385m (£138m). Mr. Hogan has also suggested that the Boeing 707s and Electras, which willbe largely responsible for American's above-average growth, will operate at reduced seat-mile costs. CUBANA'S PROBLEMS •THOUGH both Cuba's rich sugar industry and its vital road and••• rail communications were almost completely disrupted by the rebel activities of Fidel Castro [writes an overseas correspondent]the hardest blow of all from Cuba's revolution hit the operations of Compania Cubana de Aviaci6n, S.A. Cubana is Cuba's prestige-oriented, international and privatelyoperated airline. Until recently one of the Latin American sub- sidiaries of Pan American World Airways, it is now proudlyadvertised in Spanish-language flight schedules as "un orgullo de Cuba en los cielos del mundo." ("The pride of Cuba in the skiesof the world.") Today, one of Latin America's few independently run, majorairline operators, Cubana has more than its share of troubles, most of them a direct result of the country's political upheaval, some ofthem a result of its perhaps-too-ambitious jet-age expansion programme. Certainly the worst publicity any Latin American airline hasreceived in many years resulted from the mid-air seizure of two of Cubana's six DC-3s and the tragic loss of one of the airline's threeViscounts in an unsuccessful rebel attempt to seize the aircraft. As a result, the company lost one-fourth of its aircraft strength.And apart from the fact that about $1,500,000 had to be written off for losses (the insurance clause protecting the crashed Viscountdid not cover the unusual manner in which it was destroyed), the damage to Cubana's foreign and domestic business will remain aslong as Cuba is in ferment. The recent U.S. airlines strike proves this. The strike of pilotsand engineers against Eastern Air Lines along the U.S. eastern seaboard shifted passenger overflow on the New York - Miamidirect flights and the numerous Miami - Havana connecting flights to hard pressed National Airlines and Pan American. Cubana, ofcourse, should have benefited as well. But its flights were often partially empty on these normally lucrative runs. Cubana is still committed to an ambitious jet-age aircraftexpansion programme that will cost about $22 million. Present fleet-expansion plans include the purchase of two Boeing 707s,spare parts included, to cost about $5 million each. The company has reportedly already made a down payment of $283,000 peraeroplane, and holds an option on a possible third. These will be delivered by March 1960.Coming into service are four long-range Bristol Britannia 310s which will cost a further $14 million. Two have now beendelivered. These will probably replace the airline's present three Super Constellation 1049Gs and one Constellation on its maininternational runs, Havana - New York, Havana - Mexico City and Havana - Madrid. The repair facilities of Bristol's Bristol deMexico S.A. de C.V., now used by Aeronaves de Mexico's Britannias, will be available on the Mexico run. Also on order are three new Viscount 818s to cost about$2,500,000, making a grand total of $21.5 million in new aircraft. To this must be added the cost of jet-runway facilities at Havana'sJose Marti International airport, which was almost completely destroyed by fire two years ago from still unknown causes.As yet, the operational thinking behind Cubana's purchase of both Britannias and Boeing 707s is not clear. Perhaps the Havana -Madrid run will substitute the 707 turbojets for the Britannia turboprops in the 1960s. A further problem is how the airlinewill be able to sell off its Super Constellations while owners of similar aircraft in the United States airlines are trying to dolikewise and when few State-operated Latin American airlines can afford them, even as secondhand equipment. The Comet 4 was strongly pushed by several of Cubana's seniorpilots, not only for the prestige value it would give the company as the first airline in the Americas to fly jets (an honour now heldby Argentina's State airline), but because of Cubana's interest in studies of the economics of the Comet 4 as a profitable mediumjet for hauls between Latin American points and Europe. Though Cubana is publicized as a private airline, no one cansay to what extent the Batista Government had a personal stake in it. Nearly all Cuban national enterprises these days, from sugarmills to hotels and including the airline, have accepted large injections of government funds. Strangely enough, these come viathe country's State-controlled trade union movement. Last November the authoritative English-language Havana Postreported "the reaffirmation of Cubana de Aviacion as a mixed labor-management enterprise . . ." And though labour's contri-bution to Cubana is not known, the advance of millions of dollars of trade union funds to build bagasse mills and luxury hotels hasbeen made public. Also involved in Cubana's financing were Batista-governmentdevelopment banks, chiefly BANDES, a typical Latin American, State-operated house. BANDES (Banco de Desarrollo, Economicoy Social), generously loaned money to almost all large Cuban national enterprises which have grown up since the war. But nowthere is a problem where Cuban Government bank loans are involved.Money for President Batista's generous loans to his country's nascent private industries stemmed from the Cuban strong man'sarbitrarily established but ill-defined sources of revenue. These came from unduly high Customs duties and tariffs, governmentbond sales to unwilling private banks, and rake offs from Havana's growing gambling business. When Batista went, so did some ofthese financial sources of public fund-raising. Cubana's bills are already high. How seriously is the airline committed to govern-ment loans? Can it finance its way through a violent govern- mental change of regime? Regionally, Cubana has a further problem. Cut-rate air-travelcompetition in the Caribbean area, where Cubana hopes to expand its routes, is rising faster than anywhere else in the world. Todaya host of small, non-schedule Latin American airlines (which are not I.A.T.A. members, and hence are not committed to I.A.T.A.'sfare regulations) are flying third- and fourth-rate aircraft and are offering fares far below those agreed upon by I.A.T.A. members,including, of course, Cubana. If Cubana de Aviacion comes unscathed through the country'sworst political upset in 25 years, it still must face the difficult problem of putting its new aircraft to work on a profitable basisagainst this unexpected competition right on its own doorstep. It was the Greek national airline, Mr. Onassis' Olympic Airways, which on February 28 took Archbishop Makarios Dock to Cyprus after hh three years' exile. He flew from London on the scheduled service; the W-- 66 is seen here
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