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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0670.PDF
670 FLIGHT, 13 May 1960 KLM, Alitalia and Swissair, have all recently received DC-8s. Here, at Zurich, is the first for Swissair, now being worked up in preparation for North Atlantic service on May 8 AIR COMMERCE . . . and San Francisco. TALOA, incidentally, offers a New York -San Francisco single tourist-class fare of $80 on its twice-weekly service between these two cities as compared with $105.50 for asingle ticket charged by American, United and TWA. This is an interesting example of how intelligent regulation by an inde-pendent air transport authority can provide an outlet for low-cost air transport and at the same time solve the problem of findingemployment for surplus piston-engined equipment. Of the unsold aircraft, the two Stratocruisers are retained forcharter work and the remaining Argonaut is used by BOAC's apprentices for practical training. Overseas Aviation has since soldone of its ex-BOAC Argonauts to the Danish firm of Flying Enter- prises A.B. ,. . WERE WE "UP A GUM TREE"? OUR Australian contemporary Aircraft takes us to task in respectof a note about Qantas in our issue December 11, 1959. In it we suggested that "it is a moot point whether or not Qantasshould be considered [by virtue of its heavy mail rate] to be on subsidy." Our Australian colleagues think that "someone orsomething" has led Flight "up a gum tree." The implications of the words "someone or something" are,possibly, that an interested party has been bringing pressure to bear on Flight to emphasize the extent of Qantas's mail payments.In fact, our conclusions were entirely our own; and on brushing up our works of reference it seems that, far from being up a gumtree, we may have under-emphasized the degree to which Qantas leans upon mail revenues. At present no less than a quarter of the airline's revenue comesfrom mail. This proportion has been tending to fall, for in the early 1950s it stood at about a third. Flight's analysis of recentairline accounts, and financial statistics published by ICAO relating to earlier years, show that no airline anywhere receives such a richmailbag as this. For comparison, the estimates for 1958 show that world airlines as a whole received only 5 per cent of their revenuefrom mail. Qantas's unique position is due partly to the fact that people inBritain and Australia are awfully keen on letter-writing. But even more significant are the mail rates which the airline receives.Because of variations in the terms of the Qantas-BOAC pool it is dangerous (as Aircraft rightly points out) to take a figure for oneyear as being typical. However, if we take a long-term view, we find that over the past five years Qantas's average mail rate hastended downwards from about 150d (Australian) to 130d per l.t.m. Now if Qantas had been paid the same rate as KLM, namelya little under lOOd, then the Australian carrier would have shown not a profit of £i million in 1958 but a loss of £1 million. It maybe suggested that KLM are not typical, and this we freely confess: KLM mail rates are also rather above the world average at about70d per l.t.m. If Qantas had had the misfortune to be paid at this average rate, then their books would have shown a loss of£2 million. Perhaps the key to the views expressed in Aircraft is to be foundin their suggestion that if Qantas are to be regarded as being on subsidy then "so is BOAC and every other airline that merely[our italics] gets the mail payments to which the Universal Postal Union agreed." The point here is that the British and Australian governments are among the very few who arc sogenerous as to pay UPU rates to their national carriers. Ti ese rates normally apply only to the relatively small amount of mailtraffic that airlines manage to get from foreign governments aitet the appetites of their national carriers have been satisfied. "LET'S GET WHAT WE NEED" 1DURTHER to our note last week about the welcome that Con--*• tinental Airlines extends in its annual report to the prospect of supersonic airliners, it must be recorded that IATA do not seemto share this airline's unqualified enthusiasm. Acknowledging that supersonic transport must come, but stilllicking the wounds of an over-hasty financial commitment to subsonic jets, IATA has decided to meet in the spring of 1961 to"make certain that if we do go to supersonic aircraft, we will get what we really need, and not what manufacturers may have tosell." These are the words of IATA's technical director, Stanislaw Krzyczkowski, who announced the meeting. Joining the discus-sions will be manufacturers, air forces, research establishments and other international organizations, and all the implications of asupersonic air transport system will be thoroughly gone into. The agenda of the meeting is being drafted by a special IATAgroup headed by Knut Hagrup, chairman of the IATA technical committee (see page 667). The supersonic meeting will be theprincipal feature of the 1961 IATA technical conference, which is to be held somewhere in North America twelve months hence. CARAVELLE HOT-ROD THE Caravelle goes on and on. Not just as one aeroplane oreven as a series of variants, but as a French national bid tor leadership in the medium-range class of airliner. At the end ofApril were announced Sud and Dassault plans for a supersonic Super Caravelle which would cruise at M2.2. This week comesnews of the Caravelle 14, a new version to be equipped with a new wing of Douglas design and powered by Rolls-Royce RB.141/llAsof 15,0001b thrust. With this announcement are answered many questions about the part that Douglas would play in par-ticipating in the project. The new Caravelle would be a direct competitor to the three-engined Boeing 727 and with the newwing and the Rolls-Royce engines should be capable of cruising at M.84. Maximum gross weight, it is reported, would be104,0001b, although this is less than the 110,2301b already announced as the maximum take-off weight for the Caravelle 7.Apart from the new wing there would also be, it seems, a further stretch of the fuselage so that the number of passengers couldbe increased from 85 (as in the Caravelle 7) to 95. This payload could be carried over a range of about 1,900 n.m. THE EFFECTS OF A STRIKE THE Aer Lingus Pilots' strike, which grounded the Irish air-line's fleet for a total of 18 days during March, caused a drop in gross revenue for that month of about £40,000. There was ageneral fall in traffic results, with the exception of the load factor, which rose 2 per cent compared with March 1959. It should beremembered when considering the March 1960 results that Easter 1959 was in March and this year was celebrated in April. Statistics,in tabular form, are as follows: — Revenue passengers Revenue passenger miles Capacity (seat miles) Cargo (kilograms) Revenue passenger load-factor ..Overall load-factor March 1960 23,13-4 5,271,000 8,427,000 439,000 63%63 % March 1959 26,519 6,283,000 10.330,000 640,000 61%61% Variation -13".', -16% -18% -31",, + T»+ 2% BEA's £95,200 shareholding in Aer Lingus, it is now confirmed, is to be bought by the Irish Government, provision for this having been made in the 1959-60 budget. This sum represents 4.6 per cent of the £2,073,000 issued share capital. Lord Douglas, BEAs chairman, is also vice-chairman of Aer Lingus Teoranta. Seeing for himself at Silver City's airport at Ferryfield on Aprii 27 is Duncan Sandys, Minister of Aviation. He is being greeted hr-e m H. C. Kennard, joint managing director of the airline
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