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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 0886.PDF
FLIGHT, 27 March 1959 443 AIR COMMERCE KIRTLESIDE DECADE T ORD DOUGLAS OF KIRTLESIDE, chairman of British-1—' European Airways, was presented on March 19 with a B.E.A. ten-year badge. Presentation was made by the chief executive,Mr. Anthony Milward, at a small private dinner party attended by members of the Board and a number of chiefs of B.E.A. depart-ments. He was presented also with a black crocodile-leather cigar case bearing a coronet and the initial "D" in gold.Lord Douglas holds the endurance record for the chairmanship of either Airways Corporation and, with the one exception of LordCitrine, he also holds the record for chairmanship of any British nationalized industry.He entered the airline business in 1919 as an airline captain on the London - Paris, London - Brussels routes and was holder ofBritish commercial pilot's licence No. 4. Appointed to the Board of B.O.A.C. in 1948, he became chairman of B.E.A. on March 14,1949. In 1949-50, his first year with B.E.A., the Corporation carriedabout 750,000 passengers, and reduced its loss over the previous year by about £lim. In 1957-58 B.E.A. carried about 2,765,000passengers, and made a profit of more than Elm. PRICE OF THE ARGOSY ""THE makers of the AW.650 Argosy, Sir W. G. Armstrong -*• Whitworth Aircraft, have never announced for publication afigure for the first cost of their new transport; but, as suggested on these pages on May 30 last, it is around the £500,000 mark.Mr. George Giles, president of Riddle Airlines, says that the cost of the four aircraft which he has provisionally ordered will be$1.5 million (£535,000) each, including U.S. import duty. He reports that the terms offered by A.W.A. are a 10 per centdown-payment and no payments until the second year, then over six years.Riddle hope to receive the route-proving demonstrator—on whose performance the final order will depend—some time inOctober. It will be operated for a period of three to six months. B.E.A.'s "V.L.F." EXPERIENCE IT will be recalled that last November B.E.A. introduced, asa special offer for winter months, an eight-day excursion fare 40 to 42 per cent below normal levels for weekend travel on theLondon - Glasgow/Edinburgh and London - Belfast domestic routes. The response to these very low fares has been consider-able; and the results are obviously of interest at this particular time, when the A.T.A.C. is about to consider the applications tooperate very-low-fare services by Eagle, Hunting-Clan and Airwork. During the period November 1-February 28, weekday (i.e.,standard-fare) traffic on these routes increased by 12 per cent, compared with the same period in 1957. By contrast, weekendtraffic—when the special eight-day excursions were available— rose by 45 per cent. The proportions of the weekend traffic whichwent the cheap way were as follows: to Glasgow, 40 per cent; to Belfast, 50 per cent.No overall load-factor figure was available last week, but experience on one typical weekend (November 22-23) was that, on It seems likely that B.O.A.C. will receive their first Boeing 707-420 ahead of the December 1959 schedule: here it is, Rolls-Royce Conways installed, rolling out of the Seattle plant earlier this month. A.R.B. certification . •. flight tests will now begin the London - Glasgow/Edinburgh route, L.F. was 73 per centcompared with 53 per cent during the corresponding weekend in 1957. Similar load factor for the London - Belfast route was80 per cent compared with 53 per cent. But for more severe winter weather than in 1957, say B.E.A.,the response would probably have been even better. HONG KONG BARGAINING-POINT T AST week T.W.A. repeated their long-standing request to the-•—' Civil Aeronautics Board for permission to add Hong Kong to their route-network. American carriers with C.A.B. permits to operate into HongKong are Pan American and Northwest. But it is one thing to have a C.A.B. permit; it is another to get U.K. approval. So far,only Pan American have been granted traffic rights by the U.K. Northwest, to their chagrin, have not. Probably at the root of Northwest's objections to B.O.A.C.'sinclusion of Tokyo in the forthcoming round-the-world service (see p. 376 last week) is Northwest's demand for Hong Kongtraffic rights. The C.A.B. could, of course, quite easily say to the British: "Unless you allow Northwest into Hong Kong we willnot let you include Tokyo in your round-the-world service to San Francisco." But the C.A.B.-baiters might note that this Board recentlydisallowed the conclusion of a management contract between Northwest and Thai Airways—which was a Northwest bid to gainthe Hong Kong rights which Thai enjoys. The C.A.B. forbade this as poaching—upholding, in fact, the British Government'sobjections. If Northwest are unlikely to get Hong Kong rights, it wouldseem that T.W.A.'s chances are even more remote. The China- coast Crown Colony is Britain's strongest bargaining counter inthe Far East—stronger even than Singapore, where K.L.M.'s rights have finally been reduced, to the bitter resentment of thatairline (see next page). THE THREEPENNY AIRLINE /"\UR leading article last week quoted an American as saying that^-^ what America needed was a "five-cent air freighter." He was mildly plagiarizing C. R. Smith of American Airlines, who yearsago spoke of the need for "a three-cent airline"—i.e., one whose fare-level was three cents per passenger mile. So far this rate has eluded permanent capture by scheduledoperators. Earlier this month, however, National Airlines sought the C.A.B.'s permission for a 25 per cent discount for off-peak,mid-week, night tourist travel. The publication Aviation Daily considers that the application is likely to be granted; it certainlyappears to conform to C.A.B. policy. The C.A.B. propounded, when it agreed to eliminate domestic discounts last October, thatthis was done "with the expectation that the carriers will develop and submit to the C.A.B. in the interim new fares designed topromote additional traffic." The proposed National rates are slightly more than 3 cents perpassenger mile, compared with average coach—i.e., tourist—fares of 4.5 cents per passenger mile. TROUBLE IN BRAZIL THE Brazilian airline industry is reported to be undergoing a*- severe financial crisis. A survey by a Government committee under Brig. Dario Azambuja, director of the Department of CivilAeronautics, has resulted in a report which, though secret, is said by a correspondent to recommend that, because Brazil has too manycommercial transports, (1) excess equipment should be sold abroad and (2) Brazil should be divided into three operational zones fordistribution among the airlines (Panair, Lloyd Aereo, REAL, VASP, Cruzeiro, Varig). The report is said to recommend that the long-range jets onorder should be used only on routes linking Brazil to the U.S.A. and Europe, and that existing aircraft should be used on routes toSouth America and domestic routes. This would suggest a cancel- lation of Varig's Caravelle order.There have been steady increases in fares in Brazil (the latest A.B.C. World Airways Guide editorial says: "Yet again we haveto report an increase in Brazilian fares"). The effect of these increases has been to cause a decline in domestic passenger trafficamounting to (according to some reports) as much as 60 per cent on some routes.All this must be rather disturbing to those who imagine Brazil— the biggest country in South America—as the biggest market forthe world's forthcoming surplus of piston engine airliners. In fact, it appears to have a surplus of its own. • • : .
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