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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0149.PDF
FLIGHT, 29 January 1960 149 "Flight" photograph nuda's ciril air terminal. On the right can be seen the fin of BOACs DC-7C G-AOIG, and taking off is a WB-50 of a USAF weather-recon. squadron IF base and civil airport, can be clearly seen though of course they were available to the general public. They were not charters, and seats were sold as units mostly through travel agents, who got 7\ per cent commission. About a month's notice of the two flights was given. On our flight—the second— we estimated that the average round-trip load factor was about 80 per cent, about 120 passengers. Assuming that 100 of these were fare-paying (there were, we noticed, some guests and Eagle personnel on board), total revenue would have been around £7,000. We imagine that the total cost per hour of an Eagle DC-6C (which are averaging around 3,500 hours' annual utiliza- tion) is about £250. Thus the round-trip, which involved 28hr flying, would have just about broken even. Eagle say that VLF is economic, and they seem to be proving it. Of the flight itself there is little to say except that it was smoothly and efficiently operated by a 24-hour "double-headed" flight crew and a hard-working team of four stewardesses. There was, unexpectedly, full meal service—unlike the proposed regular VLF flights which will be of the bring-your-own-food type. All seats were backwards-facing, and we were interested to learn from Eagle that this never elicits adverse passenger comment. The passengers were judged from a quick mental market survey to be from all walks of life: we met a Bermudian couple and their young son who had been on a month's visit to relatives in England; a woman Bermudian Government official; a parson with a parish in Hamilton; a Frenchwoman, a resident in Bermuda, who was taking her three-year-old niece Dominique home to Paris to her mother; and the chief pilot of a large American domestic airline. They were a mixed lot, quite ordinary people who obviously appreciated the bargain of a £94 saving in fare, but who otherwise probably knew nothing of the significance of their journey. One asked for champagne, and another wanted to know whether our DC-6C was a "turbojet plane." Footnote: The Bermuda - London fare of £124 return was arrivedat by subtracting from the N.Y. - London return economy fare the Bermuda - New York tourist return fare (this actually works out to£127 15s). Thus the international fare structure, to use the old phrase, would not be undermined. On the question of British carriers playingthe game in this respect, we were told that the UK was "much too nice." How about Pan American's fare on the US cabotage route NewYork - Puerto Rico of $85? If this didn't undermine the Caribbean international fare structure, what did?
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