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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 0947.PDF
474 FLIGHT, 3 April 1959 AIR COMMERCE SHORT SHRIFT FOR SHORT HAUL /"COMPLETE figures are now available for Britain's air traffic^~/ in 1958. In the event the year turned out less badly than had been forecast twelve months ago. At that time it seemed thattraffic might even suffer a slight fall. But the final figure for the year showed a rise of 5 per cent. This recovery was felt par-ticularly on the medium and long stages. Having had insufficient advance warning of last year's economicdifficulties, carriers were unable to avoid scheduling excess capacity and total available capacity rose by 14 per cent. Loadfactor fell as a result from a marginal 63 per cent to an unprofit- able 58 per cent. A remarkable feature of last year's recession experience was thateach airline was affected differently. B.O.A.C., which alone accounted for slightly more than one-half of Britain's total airtraffic, enjoyed an 8 per cent rise in passenger traffic while freight fell by 5 per cent, B.E.A., on the other hand, increased theirfreight traffic by as much as 13 per cent while passenger-miles increased by only 4 per cent. The independents increased theirfreight traffic even more rapidly than B.E.A.—by 29 per cent— while their scheduled passenger mileage improved by 6 per centand inclusive-tour traffic by 36 per* cent. Thanks largely to the economy-class fare, B.O.A.C. experienceda gratifying 26 per cent increase in passenger traffic on Atlantic routes. Freight showed a similar improvement. But on theirEastern and African routes the picture was less cheering: passenger and freight traffic fell by 5 and 13 per cent respectively.Much of this drop was due to a falling-off in business activity among most of the countries of Asia and Africa. But unscheduleddelays resulting from technical faults must also have exerted a depressing effect on B.O.A.C. traffic in these regions. B.E.A. felt the recession most acutely on domestic routes, wherepassenger traffic fell by 3 per cent. The independents fared even worse on their domestic services: passenger-miles were down by6 per cent. B.E.A. managed to improve their freight loads on both domestic and international services, while the independents—largely thanks to the car-ferry activities of Silver City and Air Charter—increased their international freight traffic by 34 percent. From this otherwise confused picture one thing stands out—that the longer the stage length, the less the effect of recession. It would appear that traffic is most volatile on those routes whereair travel saves the least time. Putting it another way, during a recession time becomes less precious. QANTAS JOINS THE BIG LEAGUE LAST week Qantas announced a firm date for 707 jet services' between Britain and Australia—July 31. The service will be via the U.S.A.; jet services on the eastern (Kangaroo) route willfollow "later in the year, as Qantas takes delivery of the rest of its jet fleet." The plan on July 31 is for a 70? to leave London Airport at1100 hr, bound for New York, San Francisco, Honolulu, Fiji and Sydney. It will arrive there at 1000 hr on August 2—38 hours afterleaving London. It will be the inauguration of a twice-weekly service. As from August 18, there will be two weekly trans-Pacific services between Australia and San Francisco, terminating at the last-named city to connect with B.O.A.C. Britannias boundfor London. One of the most pleasing air-to-air pictures of the first Vickers Vanguard, G-AOYW, is this study procured from a Viscount on an early test flight. Since the first flight on January 20 the Vanguard has flown more than 70 hr; a second aircraft (the first for B.E.A., G-APEA) is due to join the test programme in about a month's time. Before delivery 12 months hence about 1,500 hr will have been flown by five aircraft on certification and route-proving AIRBROKERS FIGHT RESTRICTION THE latest annual report presented by the chairman of the Air-•*- brokers Association provides a timely reminder of the diffi- culties placed in the way of non-scheduled air transport and ofthe efforts that are being taken on the Baltic Exchange to eliminate such obstacles. Much publicity has been given to the restrictive attitudesadopted by Indian and Pakistani authorities for the protection of respective national carriers (see Flight, January 23). Not only do"no objection certificates" have to be obtained before clearance can be obtained but a tax is also levied on approved non-scheduledflights operated by foreign carriers. The Airbrokers chairman took the opportunity of referring tothe restrictions imposed by those governments usually considered to be liberal in their attitudes to air transport. The Canadian AirTransport Board confronts applicants seeking to operate non- scheduled flights with a formidable mass of documentation andalso specifies various restrictive conditions which lay down a minimum period of notice, a maximum rate of agents' commission,and minimum quotations (tied on a percentage basis to the I.A.T.A. fare levels). The C.A.B. also specifies fixed charter rates.The attitude of the Airbrokers Association is that the amounts charged for non-scheduled flights should be entirely a matter fornegotiation between carrier and customer. In Europe—despite the conferring at Strasbourg—there is stilllittle practical evidence of an easing of restrictions. Germany and Sweden, in particular, appear to have adopted a more severeattitude to foreign non-scheduled activities in recent months. Italy and Austria have also shown less encouragement to foreigncharter operators: the services of the German independents have been particularly threatened in these two countries. CONVAIR 540 SALES TOUR 'T'HE Napier Eland-powered, Canadair-built Convair 540 has•*• embarked on a series of three world sales tours. The first tour began on March 23, and is to cover 17,000 miles of theU.S.A. and Western Canada. A second 540 is due later this month to make a 25,000-mile tour of South America; and next monthan aircraft will visit Europe. The following are the points to be included in the NorthAmerican tour: Utica, New York, Washington, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Las Vegas, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit,Minneapolis, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The South American tour will include stops at Havana,Barranquilla, Bogota, Lima, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Ascuncion, Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro, San Paulo, Salvador,Belem and Caracas. No details are as yet available of the European tour. The wholedemonstration programme will be jointly sponsored by Napier and Canadair. "V.L.F." ON TELEVISION LAST week, in the B.B.C. television programme Panorama, the• proposed very-low-fare independent services were the subject of controversy. Those taking part were Mr. Keith Granville,deputy managing director of B.O.A.C., and Mr. Maurice Curtis, managing director of Hunting-Clan Air Transport. Mr. WoodrowWyatt was the interviewer. To air such a complex subject thoroughly in the beat-the-clockcircumstances of television is an impossibility. It might have been much better in this case for Woodrow Wyatt briefly to haveexplained the issues involved, and then for the contestants to have argued about the basic issue—whether or not the proposed V.L.F.services will cause material diversion of the Corporations' traffic. However, the discussion produced some illuminating irrele-vancies as well as relevancies. Mr. Granville asserted that "B.O.A.C. have led the world in low-fare programmes," adding that theCorporation had been blocked [in I.A.T.A.] by the independents from introducing new low fares. Mr. Curtis did not answer that;but he pointed out that B.O.A.C.'s new low fares "were not new fares at all"—they were no lower than those offered on independentAfrican Colonial coach services for six years past—and that there- fore B.O.A.C.'s proposed fares would not generate any newtraffic above what the independents had already generated. Mr. Granville said that the independent fares "sound mostattractive, I'm sure," but in fact it was not very difficult for any- body running an aeroplane or a bus to provide a very low frequency
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