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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0352.PDF
352 FLIGHT, 11 March 1960 Variation on a now familiar scene is provided by this Varig Boeing 707-441 (Rolls-Royce Conways) after roll-out at Renton. About $6.9m (£2'/2m) is being lent to Varig by the Ex-lm bank to finance their order for two. The air- craft will be based at New York and maintained by Lockheed Aircraft Services International AIR COMMERCE . THE BIG INDEPENDENT MERGER HOW big relative to the two corporations is the new AirworkHunting-Clan consortium? Since full financial and traffic statistics for each airline are secret (traffic on scheduledservices only is known), a comparison in terms of traffic carried cannot be made. But it is possible to make a rough comparisonin respect of existing ton-m.p.h. fleet capacity; and in these terms the new group is about 28 per cent the size of BOAC and about44 per cent the size of BEA (see below). Very few details of the merger, which was announced onMarch 1, have been released. The brief statement published by the two independents read as follows: — "Mr M. D. N. Wyatt, chairman of Airwork Limited,Mr P. LI. Hunting, chairman of Hunting-Clan 'Air Transport Limited, and Sir Nicholas Cayzer, chairman of the British and CommonwealthShipping Group, announce that it has been decided to merge their air transport interests."Further details of the merger will be announced at a later date." Airwork is the bigger operator—in the ratio of 3:2 in termsof fleet capacity. No reference is made in the statement to the shipping interests in the Airwork Group—Blue Star and FurnessWithy, who own about a third each. (The other main shareholder in Airwork is Whitehall Securities.) British & Commonwealth Shipping, who are mentioned (theirname appears on the two HCA-onerated Britannias), own 50 per cent of Hunting-Clan Air Transport, and the Hunting Groupshipping concern owns the other 50 per cent. The name Clan signifies the interest of the Clan Line shipping concern beforeit merged with Union Castle to form British & Commonwealth Shipping early in 1956. It is highly probable that the new group will be given a name.This will almost certainly be prefixed by the word "British". It is not known whether the name "United Airways," registered in1935 by Airwork, will be included: it is believed to be under consideration. In due course it may become clear what inducement theMinister offered the two companies to encourage this merger, which is the first fruit of his stated policy to create bigger andstronger groups in the independent airline industry. His first public reference to this policy was at the BIATA dinner lastNovember. It is significant that Airwork and Hunting-Clan have been in partnership on the colonial coach "Safari" routesto East Africa since June 1952, to Central Africa since July 1953, and to West Africa since June 1954. An article on HCA's contri-bution appeared in Flight for January 22; and the controversy over the future of these colonial coach services—which bothcompanies applied a year ago to operate at "VLF" rates—was aired in the issues of January 1 and January 8. It is likely thateconomy class services will be introduced on the East and Central African routes this year, either by BOAC on a cabotage basis oras part of a new international fare structure. Whether a 30-70 division of these services (as proposed by the Government in1957), or perhaps a more equitable share has been offered to a merged Airwork/HCA consortium must remain for the present a matter for speculation. ("Straight and Level," February 26p. 281.) Only the air transport interests of the two companies areinvolved in the merger. HCA have an interest in Hunting-Clan Air Carriers, which was formed last January following the dis-bandment of Hunting-Clan African Airways. The associated HCA company, Field Aircraft Services, is not included. Airwork own Air Charter, Transair, Morton/Olley AirServices; and their big helicopter interests—to which were recently added Bristow Helicopters—are included in the merger.The fleets are as follows: — Airwork Group Aircraft* Britannia 307 Viscount 831 Viscount 804 Viscount 736 DC-4 Bristol Freighter DC-3 Heron Dove Rapide Tiber 2 2 3 2 3 9 3 2 7 3 Capacity Ton-mile» per hour (approx.) 7,500 4,500 6.000 2,800 2,700 8.4001.500 450 1,000 150 'Helicopters (50) omitted. Aircraft DC-6C Viscount 833 Viking DC-3 Hunting-Clan Number 2 23 5 3 Total: 35,000 Capacity Ton-mile* per hour (approx.) 7,500 5,750 6.750 3,000 1,500 Total: 24,500 Thus the total fleet capacity (ton-miles per hour) of the newgroup is roughly 60,000. This compares (rough estimates again) with 214,000 ton-miles per hour for BOAC and 137,000 ton-miles per hour for BEA. Thus British United Airways—or what- ever name is chosen—has a fleet capacity of about 28 per centrelative to BOAC, and about 44 per cent relative to BEA.* These relative sizes will fall steadily during 1960 as BOAC takedelivery of 15 Boeing 707-420s and as BEA take delivery of 20 Vanguards. The relative fleet capacities will become about19 per cent and 29 per cent respectively. *BOAC: 15 Britannia 102 (50,000 ton-m.p.h.); 17 Britannia 312 (63,000); 10 DC-7C (33,000); 19 Comet 4 (68,000)—total: 214,000 ton-m.p.h.BEA: 6 Comet 4B (22,600): 21 Viscount 802 (31,400); 18 Viscount 806 (27,000); 24 Viscount 701 (33,400); 44 DC-3 (22,000); 2 Heron(450); 3 Rapide (150)—total: 137,000 ton-m.p.h. SUPERSONIC PARIS NORD ~M"OW under consideration in France is a report by the director-1" general of the Paris airports into the possibilities of establish- ing a new airoort to the north—Paris Nord. Because of thelimitations of built-up areas to the south, hilly country to the west and north-west, and the direction of prevailing winds tothe east, it has been concluded that the only possible area lies to the north-east of Le Bourget between Route Nationale 17 in thewest and the valley of the Biberonne River in the east. Nevertheless the disadvantages of this site are said to beserious and the Paris airport authorities (i.e. of all airports in the Paris area) are not particularly enthusiastic about the plan. Inany case it would cost at least as much (500m new francs) to implement as the cost to date of Le Bourget and would alsoinvolve the absorption of 2,500 hectares of cultivated but boggy land. But from a study of forecasts into the anticipated increaseof passenger movements at Paris it seems that there may be no alternative. It has been predicted that there will be 210,000 air-craft movements a year at Paris by 1974, and 220,000 in about 1980. By then the Paris Nord airport could be expected to handle50 per cent of the total traffic—6,000,000 passengers a year at a peak of 3,300 in any one day. Paris is the first airport authority in the world to face up to theproblems of designing for supersonic aircraft. From an airport point of view, practically nothing about these aircraft is known.What, for example, will be the length of runway required? Practically zero, or longer than ever before? The plan for the Paris Nord airport is to provide 13,000ftsupersonic aircraft runways that could be extended to 16,500ft.
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