FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0222.PDF
222 FLIGHT, 12 February 1960 AIR COMMERCE . . . "DIRECT SERVICE" "THE main objective of this private enterprise helicopter •*• operator," wrote a staff member in Flight of January 18,1957, after an interview with Robert Cummings of New York Airways, "is to get rid of his subsidy just as quickly as he can."In a lecture before the RAeS Rotorcraft Section last week Mr' Cummings estimated that NYA's subsidy (now about £800,000 ay^ar or 3s 5d a seat-mile) will be eliminated by 1966. NYA has just ordered ten multi-turbine (T-58), 25-passengerVertol lC7s to replace the five single piston-engined, 15-passenger Vertol 44s at present operating "direct service" origin-to-destina-tion air transportation in the New York City area. The new 135kt Vertol 107s will come in during the spring ofnext year. According to figures in an appendix, NYA's estimated subsidy will, by 1963, be down to £432,000, by 1965 it will bedown to £183,000, and by 1966 it will be eliminated. Throughout the lecture, which was short and concise, there wasevidence of the environment which has bred the type of helicopter that our own BEA—with its relatively minute background ofhelicopter experience—now wishes to buy. We quote: "Flying 24 hours a day, in varying weather conditions, has exposed NYAto many of the problems that will be encountered on a larger scale as the scope of our business is increased. It has given us essentialinformation and know-how. ... By the end of 1963 we expect to be carrying passengers at the rate of 1,000,000 a year. ... Byreducing the average transit time per stop from four minutes to three, the number of seat-miles produced per year [by five 107s]could be increased by some 2,040,000. . . ." Of the Rotodyne Mr Cummings said: "Its availability in 1964will place NYA in a position to offer the public a substantially enlarged and even more useful service on a business basis." BOAC MAY POOL WITH PANAIR ONE of the surprises resulting from the Minister of Aviation'srecent visit to South America (he returned to London on February 7) was the possibility of a pool agreement betweenBOAC and Panair do Brasil. In one respect negotiations between Duncan Sandys and Brig Correa de Melo, the Brazilian AirMinister, have been favourable: Brazilian quota restrictions on BOAC's fifth-freedom traffic rights in Brazil—which wererecently threatened with reduction to one service a week (see Shown in this sketch is the modern terminal now under construction at Ringway, the airport for Manchester. One pier is to be used for domestic traffic, the other for international services Flight February 5)—are reported to have been at least temporarilylifted. Discussions were also held, it is believed, on the possibili- ties of establishing a Brazilian subsidiary for the assembly ofBritish aircraft, possibly the Avro 748. Normally, of course, airline pool agreements are negotiated bythe operators concerned and only when agreement is reached is the sanction of the governments requested (sometimes). This is thecase with the proposed South Atlantic pool between BOAC and Aerolineas Argentinas which is still under negotiation. But thepool with Panair is different, and its consideration by the Minister of Aviation (the initiative is claimed to have come from Brazil)emphasizes the hard political bargaining which is accompanying the corporation's return to South America. Panair do Brasil is themajor carrier on the South Atlantic route and this winter is offering 274 seats per week with DC-6Cs and DC-7Cs in compari-son with the 122 seats per week being offered by BOAC's Comets. It can reasonably be assumed that BOAC would only agree toeliminate competition with its Brazilian South Atlantic rival if this were the only means by which a reasonable quota of fifth-freedom traffic could be assured; the high frequency of services offered by the Brazilian national carrier has previously beencharacterized by generally low load factors on the routes Recife - Dakar and Recife - Lisbon. The agreement proposed is a classicexample of the "entry-free" type of pool. This, then, seems to be the bargain which may be struck by theUnited Kingdom and Brazilian Governments. Mr Arthur Davies, an Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of Aviation, who accom-panied the Comet's inaugural flight to South America, has stayed in Brazil to work out further details of the proposed agreement. WINGS OVER WESTMINSTER THE Bow Group—"an independent research society of youngerConservatives"—has chosen this appropriate moment to pub- lish a searching analysis* of Britain's air transport policy. TheBow Group has become widely known in political circles during the past two or three years. Its writings have been acclaimed asbeing representative of independent political research at its best. During the past year a small sub-committee within the group hasbeen working on a study of Britain's airlines. A theme that runs throughout the booklet is the need to reduceair fares. The group believes that the primary role of politicians is to secure those conditions where cheap air transport wouldbe welcomed both at home and abroad. In the field of regula- tion, two recommendations follow closely those advocated inFlight last week ("Memo to Mr Sandys"): — (a) Replacement of the ATAC by a streamlined version of theAmerican CAB which would be independent of the Minister of Aviation. (b) The conducting of hearings in public rather than in camera. The other recommendations on regulation may be summed up as follows: —(c) Abandonment of the "sterile concept of material diversion," instead providing the ATAC's successor with more general terms ofreference aimed at the orderly development of the industry as a whole rather than mere protection of the corporations.(d) Introduction of a more satisfactory system of appeal. (e) Greater control over those regular services which can at presentbe described as "non-scheduled" and which lie outside the existing machinery for regulation.(f) Introduction of a general operating licence widiout which no air services, scheduled or non-scheduled, could be operated (this function,says the group, could well be exercised by an enlarged Air Registration Board).(g) Adoption of less cumbersome procedures for considering new route applications for scheduled services and inclusive tours.(h) Compulsory powers to obtain statistics—operational, traffic and financial—from corporations and independents, and the analysis andpublication of this information. The authors recognize that the main problem facing the new licensing authority will be to find a way of allowing the corpora- tions and independents to live and grow together. This will, they say, involve taking advantage of the independents' lower costs *"Wings Over Westminster," published by the Bow Group, 22St Giles High Street, London WC2. Price 7s 6d (8s post free). and, at the same time, assisting both corporations to cut theircost levels. A whole chapter to this subject alone; this is possibly the most detailed study into the industry's post-war financialrecord that has yet been published. Four particular spheres are given as those in which die inde-pendents have the greatest scope for scheduled operations: (1) Social services, (2) The corporations' marginal routes, (3) Peakservices on highly seasonal routes, and (4) Very Low Fare services. For this last type of operation the group advocates the formationof companies in which corporations and selected independents would participate together: this device would allow independentsto work with the corporations in developing VLF services. Two chapters deal with foreign policy. After a lengthy analysisof traffic rights and bilateral agreements, the group comes out strongly in favour of a more liberal attitude. In those cases whereFifth Freedom rights are not available (or are only obtained after resort to the more labyrinthic forms of international intrigue),the authors endorse adoption of a system involving cash payment for Fifth Freedom traffic rights. There is also a spirited defenceof IATA and of pooling agreements. Both these institutions have come in for considerable criticism of late, and for this reason theauthors have gone into considerable detail to justify these bodies. In the case of IATA they suggest two radical departures frompast policy. The first is for the final sanction of air fares to be taken out of the hands of individual governments and vestedinstead in ICAO. The second is the adoption of the fare- differential—lower fares for slower services. The main argu-ment here is one that has many times in the past been advocated in Flight: such a scheme would allow airlines to escape fromthe rat-race of quality competition and provide manufacturers with a real incentive to design airliners the primary attribute ofwhich is the provision of low-cost air travel. Other chapters deal with such subjects as the development ofUK domestic services; management and morale; competition from surface transport; airline safety; airport organization; air trans-port for the armed forces; and the manufacture of civil aircraft. Each of these chapters contains interesting ideas and information,and there are numerous reminders that in air transport _ you cannot always separate politics from economics. And this, wseems, was where the Bow Group came in.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
