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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0483.PDF
483 FLIGHT, 8 April 1960 AIRLINES The Way BEA Sees It The Domestic Scene: LORD DOUGLAS Replies to "Flight" Questions on UK Internal Services WHATEVER else may be undecided at the present time,one thing is quite certain: BEA, for as far ahead as maybe seen, will be the operator primarily responsible for the development of Britain's internal air services. This is how the corporation's chairman, Lord Douglas, replied to our questions about the future: — It is suggested that your plans for the expansion of domestic trunk route services will, over the next few years, seriously divert traffic from British Railways, on whose modernization the nation is to spend more than £ 1,600m. Do your plans for the expansion of domestic car services conflict with national policy in respect of the railways? We must keep a sense of proportion: British Railways operate about 20,000m passenger miles each year, and the average pas- senger distance is 20 miles. BEA operate about 300m passenger miles over an average of about 216 miles. Thus our traffic is about 1| per cent of that carried by the railways and the difference in stage distance shows that our traffic by comparison is much more long-haul. I would say that the £ 1,600m is being directed almost entirely towards improving a service to a different market. We accept, in perspective, that air traffic is a very small percentage of railway traffic. But will not the possible diversion of traffic from the railways' trunk routes divert the railways' primary revenue? I agree that we are directing our efforts more to the trunk routes and that we are getting down to second class railway fares already—just as the airlines have done in America. The railways will always have the bulk of the freight traffic of course; but I wonder how primary the railways' trunk route passenger revenue is. After all, the average railway stage distance is only 20 miles. Have you ever been asked by the Minister to "take it easy" on Britain's trunk routes, for fear of diverting revenue from the railways, as part of a co-ordinated national transport policy? No, I have not been asked by any Minister, even when we had a Minister responsible for all forms of transport, to do this. What future role do you see for the independents in UK domestic air transport? It is not for me to say what their future role will be: this is a matter for the new Licensing Board. What I can say however is thai we are not keen to lose any of our routes to the independents. We are certainly not going to step forward and give away any of our routes to them. As I see it the Licensing Board can do two things. It can take away a route from us and give it to an independent; or it can license an independent to operate in parallel with us. Of coarse, we shall have to fall in line with their decisions. But we shall resist very strongly giving up our routes to the independents, or paralleling with them. In any case, I think that the local Advisory Councils will have some- thing to say about this. They won't, I think, be terribly anxious to be deprived of BEA. Parallel competition inevitably reduces the load factor, and hence we should not be able to reduce fares to the extent which we are now planning to do. Have you been approached by the Minister on the question of giving up or sharing routes with independents prior to the inauguration of the Licensing Board? I have had four meetings with the Minister so far to discuss the future of British air transport. He has asked us to see what arrangements we can make in respect of Hunting-Clan's colonial coach service to Gibraltar, and the question of Malta is now being discussed with Skyways. But I have not been approached by the Minister or his Ministry in this context as far as the internal services are concerned. But I think that there are internal routes which could be developed by the independents—routes like Newcastle - London, Swansea - Cardiff - London, Cornwall - London, and so on. There are great gaps in the map. We haven't taken them on because we think we would lose money on them. Even London - Manchester is not yet paying us; London - Edin- burgh will break even soon and London - Glasgow and London - Belfast are already profitable. You already have a financial interest in Cambrian and Jersey Airlines—do you propose to extend this policy? Yes, we are considering possible financial arrangements with one or more other independents. We think that we can make a useful contribution to the development of the independents. We have helped Cambrian a good deal, chartered DC-3s to them at a very favourable rate—they have bought five from us—and our schedules-planning and commercial people have helped them. Could you enlarge on your plans, so often referred to but not yet implemented, for "no-frills" bus travel? We think we have gone a long way already towards implement- ing no-frills bus travel. Our high-density Viscounts are now operating, without catering, on the London - Glasgow and London - Edinburgh routes at off-peak fares which are within a few shillings of second-class rail fares. There are no drinks, no food or refreshments, but there is adequate room. Stewardesses are not carried, but there is a flight clerk. I expect that these no-frills services will be generally extended by next spring. What are your plans for simplified ticketing procedures on internal routes? A distinction must be drawn between "no-frills" bus services, which are already being introduced, and "walk-on" bus services. As Mr Milward has recently said, we are hoping to introduce airport ticketing first of all on the London - Glasgow route. The point is that the prerequisite of airport ticketing is high frequency —say an hourly service. There may have to be a booking facility at the airport or it may be possible to buy tickets "at the bottom of the steps." At a guess I should think that walk-on services may be intro- duced in the spring of 1962 but, as I have said, such a ticketing procedure must depend upon the attainment of a high frequency service. In general, we want to move towards simplified ticketing on all our services, internal and external. We are also giving a lot of thought to the carry-on baggage principle whereby the passengers are not separated from their baggage, which is carried in the cabin. This means altering the aircraft considerably to provide the necessary baggage space, which may defeat the object of high-density seating. It is a matter of balancing this against reduced cost of baggage handling and increased turn-round t me. Which aircraft will be used on which BEA internal routes? The Vanguard will be introduced on the four domestic trunk routes from the spring of next year. The Viscount will progres- sively take over most of the other domestic routes, eliminating almost entirely our DC-3 Pionairs by next year, leaving us with just seven Pionair Leopard freighters. There are a few aero- dromes on the Highlands and Islands routes which the Viscount may not be able to use, and this is where our three Heralds come in. Thus Viscounts and Heralds together will eliminate our passenger Pionair DC-3s. We are hoping eventually to replace the seven Leopard freighters with the three Argosies which we are hoping to lease from Hawker Siddeley for delivery in about a year's time. These aircraft will deal with our all-freight services. Do your Argosy plans anticipate a trend towards the carriage of more BEA freight on all-freight services rather than as at present, when 65 per cent of your freight is carried in the holds of passenger aircraft? Not necessarily: the three Argosies are intended to replace our seven all-freight Leopards and, as you know, our Vanguard fleet will greatly increase our capacity for mixed passenger-freight operations—on internal as well as external services. It is possible that ixi the peak summer periods Argosies may in fact be operated in mixed passenger-freight form. It has been reported that Comets will be used on domestic trunk routes. Is this correct? No, this is not correct; I think there was a misunderstanding here. The Vanguard will eventually be our main internal trunk route aeroplane. - [Continued overleaf
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