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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 1661.PDF
804 FLIGHT, 12 June 1959 AIR COMMERCE B.O.A.C. FORGES AHEAD 'T'OWARDS the dose of last year's summer season it becameA apparent thai B.O.A.C. was likely to oust T.WA from their long-held position of number two across the North Atlantic. Thelast quarter of 1958 saw B.O.A.C. take the lead Flight, April 24). Statistics for the first quarter of this year now show that theBritish carrier has forged convincingly ahead of its American rival. Compared with T.WA's passenger total of 18,000, B.O.A.C.lifted no less than 28,000 passengers across the North Atlantic in the first three months of this year. The Corporation's figuresincorporate Canadian traffic, but if this is excluded the U.S. operator is seen to have carried over 4,000 passengers fewer thanB.O.A.C. on the U.S. - Europe routes. To put these carriers' traffic into perspective, PanAm carriedno less than 54,000 passengers during the first quarter. This figure —which is equivalent to 28 per cent of the total market—is aboutdouble the Corporation's traffic. Footnote: Last week B.O.A.C. announced that Comet 4 services to New York are to be increased from daily to 12-times-weekly frequency by the end of June. There will also be two jet services per week to Montreal, instead of just one, as from mid-June. MALTA SAYS YES . THE air licensing authority of Malta, having heard the case forand against Eagle's "VLF." £19-rerurn application (see summary in Flight for May 22), has decided to approve theapplication. This follows the approval of similar V.L.F. applica- tions by the Hong Kong and Aden authorities. A decision by theMinister of Transport is, of course, still awaited: the recom- mendations of the A.T.A.C—whose private hearings into theEagle and Airwork/Hunting-Clan VLJ. applications involved sittings lasting a record 20 hours—were made early in May. The "status" of the other applications in the other Coloniesconcerned is as follows: Cyprus, Nairobi and Nassau—hearings completed, but no decision announced. Singapore (whose airrights are still the responsibility of the U.K. despite independence) and Gibraltar have no air licensing boards; the V.L.F. applicationsto these points were heard by the A.T.A.C. *-AND MORE "V.L.F." T"\ESPITE talk about the vast size of the short-haul market, the*-* most important untapped routes to the U.K. are those from Australia and South Africa. These two are the only major routeson which the air share of the total pasesenger movement is less than 20 per cent. A recently announced effort to penetrate the South Africanmarket is an £87 10s fare (£67 10s in the off-season) between Luxembourg and Lourenco Marques. (The circuitous routingvia Lisbon is dictated by the need to secure traffic rights.) Making allowance for connecting services at either end, it thus becomesstartlingly possible to travel between London and Johannesburg for about £100—saving more than £50 on the existing tourist fare.This service will be operated by a new company, Trans Africa Air Coach. Trans Africa Air Coach is closely associated with OverseasAviation (whose newly acquired Argonauts will be chartered for this operation) and with the Overseas dub, a social and residentialdub in London which caters especially for younger South Africans. Here is the Vickers Vanguard after iti second overseas flight—at Brussels, where it was inspected by Sabena. Next day, June 4, it flew to Rome, where it was inspected by Alitalia. All three flights (the first was to Hamburg) have been spot on schedule, and in "jet" block-times —2 hr 27 min to Rome, for example Off the line at Boeing's Renton division rolls 707 number 50—a model- 120 for American Airlines. Meanwhile the first Douglas DC-8 has been delivered—to the schedule published on this page two years ago—to United Air Lines, who will use it for training prior to services in September. Temporary loss of the second DC-8, badly damaged in a heavy landing, will not affect the certification programme THE LAST OF B.O.A.CA CONNIES MORE information is now available about B.O.A.C.'s success-ful disposal of its L.749 Constellations. The acquisition of four by Skyways, reported last week, completed the sale of all 16. Price paid by Skyways will not be disclosed; it is said byB.OAC to be "under negotiation." Nor have the values of the other 749 sales been disclosed; but an average figure of about£100,000 each might be of the right order. Skyways will take 'LAX, T-AL, 'NUP and 'NUR; the first twowill be delivered in a few days' time prior to the cargo conversion- work reported last week. The first Connie to be sold was 'NUX toPacific Northern in April 1957; two more were bought by that operator; two by Capitol; two by Transocean; two by the BabbCo.; and three by Avianca. PROMOTING THE ELAND CONVAIRT HE promotion of the Canadair 540 in recent months has beenquite remarkably intense; a powerful world-wide advertising campaign has been backed up by an 80,000-mile (to date) series ofdemonstration tours, and this week a promotional peak will be reached at the Paris Show. The very first Eland-Convair, the340 converted by Napier at Luton in 1955, will return to Europe after its two-year flight test programme in America for the ParisShow, and for a subsequent series of European demonstrations. Meanwhile two other Eland Convairs, the 440 converted byCanadair and the 440 converted by PacAero, have successfully completed—on schedule—ambitious tours of North and SouthAmerica. One aircraft visited more than 40 cities in America and Canada over a ten-week period. The other visited every countryin South America except one over a four-week period. Starting on July 1, Allegheny Airlines of Washington D.C. willbegin regular passenger-carrying schedules with a leased Napier Eland Convair on its routes to Atlantic City and Pittsburgh fromWashington. THE TOKYO DISPUTE AS this issue went to press the CA.B. sent to the White House**• for Presidential approval their final decision about B.O.A.Cs right, under the U.K.-U.S.A. Bermuda air agreement, to includeTokyo On its Hong Kong—San Francisco route. A brief recapitulation of the complex situation is called for. Itwill be remembered that B.O.A.C. prematurely inaugurated a service on this route (thus completing their round-the-worldservice) on April 1. It was discontinued when the OA.B., in the face of Northwest Airlines' allegation that the service would not bein the American public interest, withheld approval which—it had been supposed by B.O.A.C.—was implicit in the U.K.-U.S. airagreement as revised in 1957. For the reasons previously put forward in these pages it will beextremely surprising if B.O.A.C's traffic rights in Tokyo are not upheld by the C.A.B. and the President. If they are not, the airagreement between the two countries will be worth less than the paper on which it is written. And at the back of everyone's mindis the ugly possibility of British reprisals. The Minister of Trans- port has actually talked about the possibility of "reviewing" the airrights of the Americans. The reason why Pan American have avoided being drawn into the controversy is probably not uncon-nected with their enjoyment of valuable rights at Hong Kong. Meanwhile, with little publicity, the Japanese appear to havebeen doing some bargaining with the United Kingdom. Talks which ended in Tokyo on May 28 ("affirming an existing under-standing") suggested that B.O.A.Q's April 1 inaugural may have been premature so far as the Japanese, as well as the Americans,were concerned. The outcome of the talks, which lasted three weeks, was that J.A.L. can now operate a daily service betweenTokyo and Hong Kong—an increase of two services per week. B.O.A.C. and Cathay Pacific were "confirmed in their rights" toserve Tokyo from Hong Kong on to, respectively, San Francisco and Australia.
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