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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0164.PDF
164 FLIGHT, 3 February 1961 Air transport's missions of mercy to the needy have on several occasions been the sub- ject of pictures in these pages. Hsre aid is being given to relieve starvation in the Congo. (Left) Wheat and maize for the Kasai province is loaded into a Swissair DC-6 at Salisbury, S. Rhodesia, and (right) a Sabena DC-6 at London loads Complan, a British food powder donated by Glaxo Laboratories, en route to Brussels and Bakwanga AIR COMMERCE . . . US AVIATION'S NEW BOSS /~\NE day prior to his inauguration as President of the United^-* States Mr Kennedy announced his selection of the man who is to become administrator of the Federal Aviation Agency—one of the world's most responsible aviation jobs. He is Mr Najeeb (Jeeb) E. Halaby, a Los Angeles lawyer and financier, and apractising pilot. Little known in Europe, and by no means a public figure in the US, the man who is to fill Elwood Quesada'sshoes has risen steadily in rank and status since, as a lieutenant in the Navy in 1945, he flew the first jet across the Americancontinent. Mr Halaby is 45 and has been a private pilot since 1933. Hewas a Lockheed test pilot in 1942-1943 and a US Navy test pilot until 1946. Then, for two years, he was aviation intelligenceadviser to the State Department; and in 1948 he became Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense. In 1953 he received the ArthurFlemming award as "the outstanding young man in federal service." Najeeb Halaby also had some hand in the birth of the FAA;between 1955 to 1957 he served as vice-chairman to William B. Harding on the White House Aviation Facilities Study Group.He is now a director of the Flight Safety Foundation, Society of Experimental Test Pilots and Quiet Birdmen. In his announcement of the appointment Mr Kennedy said:"During the next few years one of the most challenging jobs in the federal service will be to minimize the perils of the airspaceand to go forward in developing the great prospects for aviation. "We have looked for the best qualified and professionally com-petent man. We have found him in Jeeb Halaby of Santa Monica. He reports directly to me and will be my principalaviation adviser and administrator of the Federal Aviation Agency." TAA BREAKS ALL RECORDS 'TWO faas stand out like landmarks in the recently publishedA report for Trans-Australia Airlines for the financial year ended June 30, 1960. For the first time TAA carried more thanone million passengers in a year. And with this surge in business came a record profit of £A^m. Last year's growth in traffic was based upon a sharp expansionof TAA's tourist-class passengers; this category of traffic appears to have more than trebled in 1959-60 compared with the previoustwelvemonth. In contrast, the volume of first-class traffic fell. (Precise figures for passengers and passenger-miles for each classof passenger cannot be established from the contradictory evidence in the report.) The net effect of this was that passengertraffic as a whole increased by almost 25 per cent to reach 532m passenger-miles. Mail traffic increased even more rapidly—by aremarkable 65 per cent—as a result of the government's decision to move all first-class mail by air without surcharge. Nevertheless,the total volume of mail traffic was still slight at only l^m ton- miles. By contrast, the volume of freight remained virtuallyunchanged at the 10m ton-miles level that has prevailed over the past three years. The overall traffic increase of 21 per cent was accompanied bya 24 per cent rise in capacity to reach the 100m c.t.m. mark for the first time. The resulting drop in load factor, together with a slightfall in average revenue rates would normally have been sufficient to have transformed TAA's narrow profit into a loss. However,by reducing unit costs by four per cent the remarkably low level was achieved of 34 pence per c.t.m. (UK equivalent 28 penceper c.t.m.). This had the effect of raising the net profit from £A£m to £A^m. Main credit for this cost reduction appears to bedue to the fuel companies. Engineering and ground expenses also showed economies; depreciation, on the other hand, showed asharp increase. Despite eight years of unbroken profitability, the airline's balance sheet is strangely disappointing. Like many government-owned airlines TAA finances its activities to a large degree out of short-term borrowing; current liabilities exceed current assets byseveral million pounds. A more serious aspect of the balance sheet is the large amount of capital tied-up in relation to the volume ofbusiness: if allowance is made for the chronic dependence upon short-term finance, it is seen that the airline fails to pass the acidtest of managing to turn over its capital once in a year. Pan of this failure can be explained by the fact that TAA is at the begin-ning of an expensive investment cycle. Another factor is thai the airline appears to have depreciated its aircraft rather slowly in thepast; this would have had the effect of inflating the values shown against fixed assets (thus exaggerating the amount of capital tiedup in the business) and realizing profit figures higher than would otherwise have been the case. It is unfortunate that no informa-tion concerning depreciation policy is given, for in its absence it is difficult to evaluate the financial progress of this technicallyexcellent airline. WHILE ANSETT GROWS AND GROWS A BRIEF announcement on page 129 of Flight last week thatAnsett had acquired Mandated Airlines, Madang Air Services and Gibbes Sepik Airways, raises the question of thefuture of Papuan Air Transport, the only remaining independent operator in the Papuan and New Guinea area. Operating fromLae and Port Moresby with two Piaggio P.166s, this independent has generated sufficient charter business to place an order for athird aircraft. It remains to be seen if Papuan stay outside the fast-growingAnsett-ANA group, for it is already rumoured by reliable Austra- lian sources that talks of a preliminary nature between Papuan andAnsett have been hanging fire until the position vis-a-vis Mandated was cleared. It would not be surprising, in view ofdiscussions about increasing self-determination for the territory, if Ansett does not shortly apply through Mandated Airlines forroutes from New Guinea to surrounding areas. Plans are in hand to extend the Mandated fleet by the addition of two Piaggios, thefirst of which may be delivered this month through Bristol Aircraft (Australia) Pty Ltd, the local agents. Ansett Transport Industries have acquired from the threeoperators—all subsidiaries of W. R. Carpenter Holdings Ltd— 21 aircraft, comprising nine DC-3s, two Ju 52s (formerly operatingwith Finnair), three Norsemen, five Cessnas and two Rapides along with Mandated's valuable land and buildings. As a resultof the take-over W. R. Carpenter Holdings becomes the largest single shareholder in the Ansett group. DEVONAIR'S NEW VENTURE A NEW project at Coventry Airport is to be undertaken by the•**- British independent Devonair, who have taken over from the now-defunct Orion Airways that independent's Coventry baseand equipment. No exchange of aircraft was involved. The ex-Orion facility is to be used for light-aircraft maintenance, andthe airline may start a flying school at Coventry to be known as either the "Centre-of-England School of Flying" or the "CoventrySchool of Flying." An executive charter service may also be operated and Devonair are interested in the possibilities of bothhelicopter operation and maintenance. The school and executive service will be operated with Tri-Pacers, Chipmunks and aComanche. Devonair operate between Chivenor and Lundy Island aseasonal non-scheduled passenger and freight service with a D.H.90 Dragonfly and a Miles Aerovan. The latter is the onlyaircraft of its type now operating in Great Britain but it has the advantage of being the only one which can carry a three-quarrer-ton freight payload into and out of Lundy while meeting the Air Registration Board's Schedule D requirements for critical enginefailure. Managing director of Devonair, and the man responsible forthe new Coventry project, is Mr Maurice Lucker.
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