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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0011.PDF
FLIGHT, 1 January 1960 11 AS reported last week, the Minister of Aviation has decided to authorizeBO AC to introduce economy fares on the British cabotage routes to the West Indies, Africa and the Far East. Before reaching this decisionhe "discussed the matter with the independent airlines principally interested, namely those operating on the routes to East and CentralAfrica." A member of "Flight's" staff last week returned from these territories, having discussed with government and airline officials, andwith other interested parties, the complicated issue of the future of air fares to Africa. Here is his first report. THE routes between the United Kingdom and British Eastand Central Africa may be said to hold the master key tothe future of British air transport. On these roxtes there are cabotage territories either under British sovereignty or in theBritish sphere of influence. And here we have the David y. Goliath situation of independents running scheduled services incompetition with (forget the hypocritical legalese "in association with") the big chosen-instrument Corporations BOAC and itspartners, EAA, CAA and SAA. Furthermore, we have—if public opinion amongst the local populations is any guide—a very greatpotential demand for low fare services. And, not least, we witness in Africa those political trends towards independence which haveto be taken into account when planning the future expansion of British air transport. The Minister has now approved the introduction of economyfares on these routes. But, at 20 per cent below I ATA tourist rates, they are scarcely less than the Colonial coach services that Airworkand Hunting-Clan have been running for seven years. What of the VLF (very low fare) proposals applied for a year ago by Eagle,and soon after by Airwork and Hunting-Clan? They are 40-50 per cent below tourist fares, and they have been awaiting an officialdecision—having been put through the official channels and thoroughly deliberated upon—for more than eight months. Thedelay has largely been due to BOAC's efforts (concentrated no doubt by the VLF proposals) to introduce economy fares on theroutes concerned. Now that these efforts have been rewarded with Ministerial approval, what about VLF? It was with these questions in mind that I recently spent a weekin British East Africa and the Central African Federation collecting from the people most concerned—Government ministers, airlineexecutives, tourist and travel organizations and, of course, plain ordinary people—their views on low fare air services. Everyone who is not in an official position is, of course, out-spokenly in favour of VLF. For more than a year the people of East and Central Africa have been pressing their Governmentsto make a decision. Enormous petitions have been signed and sub- mitted to the authorities, including one of nearly 10,000 signaturespresented to the East African i Air Transport Licensing Advisory Board in Kenya and to the Air Transport Advisory Council inLondon. There is no doubt about the nature of public opinion in Kenya towards the prospect of being able to fly home and backfor £100 instead of the present £200 (Colonial coach) or £234 (IATA tourist). But official opinion is more circumspect. The Governmentauthorities in East and Central Africa, and the established airlines, have to consider the effect upon existing air services of the pro-posed VLF services. Whilst the authorities in Aden, Hong Kong, Malta and other Colonies have held formal hearings and haveproclaimed their desire for VLF, the authorities in East and Central Africa have made no decision. The appropriate hearings havebeen held by the licensing authorities concerned, and their recom- mendations submitted, but no statement has been made about thenature of the recommendations. In both East Africa and Central Africa the issues are considered to be much too complicated for Disgorging a Bristol Siddeley Proteus at Nairobi is a DC-6A "Africargo" freighter of Hunting-Clan, one of the established independents on the African routes ..... "Flight" photograph THE KEY TO VLF" Part One of an On-the-spot Inquiry, in British East and Central Africa, nto the Very-low-fares Controversy By J. M. RAMSDEN any unilateral official decision to be declared. The answer, theysay, must come—after close consultation—with HMG. Nevertheless, I did not find anyone unwilling to see me or toanswer, on the record or off the record, my questions. In all I spoke to some 16 people, and I am grateful to them for theircourtesy and helpfulness. It was possible to arrange just so many meetings in advance, and as these interviews progressed it wasevident that there were more people involved than I had originally thought. Without exception they all agreed to see me, even whenI approached them at very short notice. It is therefore as well, to begin with, to do some straightforwardreporting, and to leave the conclusions and comment until a later instalment.I passed through the truly delightful new air terminal at Nairobi, Embakasi (wondering, incidentally, why our new airport terminalarchitecture at home, as typified by Gatwick, has to be so dis- tasteful), and made my way to the High Commission offices inNairobi. Here I met the Director of Civil Aviation, Mr. J. J. Furniss. He explained that the Air Transport Licensing AdvisoryBoard, which comprises four highly respected representatives of the public of East Africa, had heard the case for and against theindependents' VLF applications last March, and had soon after- wards submitted its recommendations to the Air Authority. Thisauthority is accountable to the High Commission and comprises the three East African Governors in Council. Normally, he asthe DCA was delegated by the Air Authority to make a decision on the recommendations of the licensing board; but in this casehis delegated powers had been taken away, and he had been instructed by the Air Authority not to make any decision. Substantial Diversion , . ": •. Mr. Furniss made the point that one VLF service a fortnightcould, assuming no new traffic was generated and all VLF traffic was diverted from the services of BOAC and EAA, amountto a substantial portion (I estimate five per cent) of the traffic between the UK and East Africa. This plight have a considerableeffect on the close margins of profit to which the established carriers already operated. He did not want to give the impression that hisGovernment was against the idea of giving VLF a trial, but to me he had to state the official viewpoint. He made the interesting pointthat had the independents followed through their applications to operate inclusive tours to East Africa, "it might have been moredifficult for BOAC." Asked whether he felt that the matter of diversion, which seemed to be the crucial issue, had been examinedin an adequately statistical and analytical manner, he was rather inclined to agree that perhaps it had not. He could call uponthe airlines for the necessary breakdown of traffic which would make such an analysis possible, but at the moment this informationwas not available, and steps might be taken to ensure that reporting was in future more comprehensive. Next I called on Col M. C. P. Mostert, general manager of EastAfrican Airways. In his office in his airline's fine new buildings at Embakasi he explained that throughout last year EAA had achieveda load factor of between 65 and 68 per cent, and he emphasized that any fare structure must be related to that level of load factor.His airline could not afford to run VLF services—"but we say to the Government that we will run VLF if they will bear the losses.I do not believe," he went on, "that VLF will create much new traffic. A small 15 to 20 per cent perhaps, it is anybody's guess. Buta large percentage of traffic will be diverted from our tourist and coach class—soon economy class—services." He had made it quiteclear to the Government that if VLF was granted to anybody
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