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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 0860.PDF
FLIGHT, 27 March 1959 423 CHANNEL AIR FERRIES Room for One More? By A. T. PUGH The doors of Silver City's Bristol Freighter are wide open to take this Triumph T.R.2, but the driver may have had to book months earlier EACH year the number of British holidaymakers who travelto the Continent increases; so, too, does the number ofthose who take their cars with them. Services for carrying cars on the short sea crossing between the coast of England and the westerly shores of France, Belgium and Holland are well estab- lished and the broad patterns of the traffic, with its sharply seasonal ups and downs, can easily be discerned. A closer investigation of the broader pattern of cross-Channel flow suggests that, as might be expected, the number of first-time travellers to the Continent has dwindled in the 13 years since 1946, albeit the total numbers of first-timers is still surprisingly high. But the leeway of six wartime years has been made up and more of those who pass through the Channel ports and air ferry airports have made the journey before. Observation shows that a first experience of Continental travel may change a holidaymaker's outlook and his travelling habits. On a return visit to the Continent, when the-sheer novelty of being abroad is superseded by the discrimination resulting from past experience, the need for greater mobility becomes paramount. Cars can certainly be hired abroad (B.E.A., for instance, operate a scheme that provides a rented car at the airport) but in general it is cheaper—and more reassuring—for a family to travel in their own car. Such families provide the majority of the business for which the cross-Channel ferries cater. The remainder consists of (a) a nucleus of business traffic less subject to the wide seasonal variations of the holidaymaker, but which nevertheless increases in volume during the summer months, and (b) freight. The demand for cross-Channel car travel has consequently risen steadily in recent years, and it has been accelerated by fares reductions, by the abolition of some of the intimidating docu- ments that had to be carried (notably the carnet, the triptyque and international driving licence) and by the provision of alter- native methods of travel and points of departure. The air ferries, by easing the difficulties of taking a car abroad, and by providing terminals geared to handle vehicles and passengers in a steady flow, have profited from an increasing share of the total business. In 1956, 232,100 cars were carried across the shorter routes to the Continent, about 36,800 of them by air. In 1957, 40,300 of the 242,800 cars crossing the Channel (16.6 per cent) were carried by the air ferries. Last year the proportion swung further in favour of air transport: out of a greater total number of cars than ever before (305,000) 58,800 were carried by the two cross-Channel car-ferry operators Silver City and Air Charter. Although, in general, fares on the sea crossings are less than for the equivalent journey by air, in some cases parity has been Short routes to the Continent on which cars can be carried. Sea ferries are shown by heavy lines. Silver City's routes from Lydd (Ferryfield) by thin lines and Air Charter's routes by dotted lines UADU/Ir a•' HARWICH& SOUTH ENDJ3?TL~ DOVER, LYDD o^(£ J HQOK/HOLL'AND ^_S^^**^OSTEND ""jS~"b DUNKIRK ^CALAIS BOULOGNE LE TOUQUET - reached. Journey distances are not great (Dover to Calais is 21 miles, to Boulogne 26, Southend to Calais - Marck Airport 78 and Ferryfield to Le Touquet 42) and the off-peak air fare per mile is moderate; on Silver City's Ferryfield - Calais route 2s lOd per mile for a car 13ft long and Is 5d per mile for each passenger. Air Charter's fares at Is 8d per mile for a car and Is per mile for each passenger on their longer route from Southend to Calais are com- petitive. In comparison, the sea fare for a car of this length is about 4s 6d per mile between Dover and Calais, although the actual fare is less than the lowest air fare on this very short sea crossing. The modest difference in fare between sea and rail is offset by the greatly reduced journey time offered by air travel, an advantage that the two airlines concerned have been quick to exploit by reducing to the minimum the time required for pro- cessing and loading at the terminal airports. The success of their policies is evidenced by their rapid expansion over the past few years, as the table shows. The chief credit must go to Silver City, who pioneered the cross-Channel air ferry and have greatly increased the volume of their business by reductions in fares. The airline's fares policy has frequently been extolled as the classic vindication of a low-fare policy. Calendar Year Accompanied 1956 cars 1957 carried 1958 Annual 1956 increase 1957 (per cent) 1958 Proportion 1956 of totals 1957 (per cent) 1958 (DAir Charter 8.500 11,200 13,000 31.8 16.0 3.7 4.6 4.3 (2)Silver City 28,325 29,116 45,808 2.8 57.2 12.3 12.0 15.2 (3)Ships 195.300 202,500 246,240 3.7 21.6 84.0 83.4 80.5 WTotal 232,100 242.800 305,000 4.6 23.8 100 100 100 (1) Southend-Calais,* Ostend, Rotterdam. (2) Ferryfield - Le Touquet, Calais, Ostend. (3) Dover and Folkestone - Calais, Boulogne, Dunkirk, Ostend. Harwich - Hook of Holland. (4) Totals in round figures. It can be judged that the Air Ferry (Silver City) and Air Bridge (Air Charter) are providing a good public service, an attractive fare and frequent schedules. But so successful have successive fare reductions been that during the height of the summer season the bookings for a particular flight—or even for a particular morning or afternoon of a particular weekend—achieve a scarcity value early in the year. (As a corollary, when fares were raised, the number of early bookings fell.) In spite of intensive and protracted efforts on the airlines' part, the seasonal peak is still very sharply defined, and the demand for space in August may rise by 4,000 per cent over the troughs of December or January. Both airlines tackle the problem of peak periods by the usual devices for regulating supply and demand, and they charge fares that on certain specific days during the summer period of June 1 to September 30 are approximately 30 per cent higher than the standard rate for this season. Winter fares may be set at a discount on the basic rates. A measure of the problem of "peak" seasonal demand (reaching its maximum over August Bank Holi- day but adversely affected also by the start of school holidays and Wakes weeks) is that increased fares are not a complete deterrent to heavy bookings for flights over these periods. Some travellers are turned away or at best have to accept alternative times. Clearly, no commercial enterprise is content to reject business or see it pass to a competitor, but with such a highly seasonal occupation as ferrying accompanied cars across the Channel it would equally not be good business if substantial excess capacity was available at times of peak demand. In fact, both carriers apply higher fares on only 20 days out of the whole year; infrequently enough it would seem, until it is remembered that these days represent the Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays of every weekend between mid-July and mid-September—each one of them tradi- tional travelling days for British holidaymakers stretching ten working days' holiday to sixteen days away. [Contd. overleaf
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