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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0257.PDF
FLIGHT, 24 February 1961 259 all their plans." Compared with the Trident, it was "much moredifferent than I thought, mainly much bigger." It was also more expensive—about £14 million compared with £1 million. It hadvery good short runway performance; landing distance was prob- ably a little less than that of the Trident. Yes, Boeing had "pickedhis brains" too, mostly on the matter of size, range and frequency. "What I like about the Trident are its size and range, which arejust right for us." Two American airlines were interested in the 121, one big one and one smaller one. BEA might give up a placeon the Trident line, but it depended on circumstances. At the moment the question did not arise, as an export customer couldget spring '64 delivery anyway. Mr Mil ward said that the US domestic airlines were experien-cing a serious recession—"they are not expanding, and I got the impression that Capital will not be the only airline to disappearduring the next twelve months. The position is serious for them, with all the new jet capacity coming along. There are jets every-where. I have never seen such competition. On some routes there are half a dozen airlines. We have enough competition, heavenknows, but it seems crazy to me to have such competition. Some people say that if you have a pool that is the end of competition.It certainly is not so." American operators had shown a lot of interest in BEA's promotional fare structure, the like of which didnot exist in the States, and which he believed was one of the secrets of BEA's profitability. No, he had not seen the Vertol 107 or the Sikorsky S-61. TheMinistry wanted BEA to buy the Westland 192C, which was more expensive to operate. BEA's plans for a Lands End - Scilliesservice were now out because of the safety aspects at the present stage of the sea crossing. BEA would like financial assistance fora Heathrow - Gatwick inter-airport helicopter service, perhaps at a frequency of six return flights a day in the summer. The needfor such a service would increase as more fixed-wing operations transferred to Gatwick. Mr Milward referred also to a city-airportmonorail (see picture above), to which BEA might contribute £1 million. At a meeting in London last week, senior executives of BOAC, BEA and the British Transport Commission were given details of French and German monorail systems. This is the German Alweg monorail of the type which is to be installed between Haneda Airport and the centre of Tokyo. In a comment afterwards Lord Douglas said that he was "not sure that it was the system for London"; a railway link line might not be so fast, but neither would it be so expensive SILVER CITY'S RAILWAY LINE TPHE price paid last week by Silver City for a major expansion of•*• business is the operation by Compagnie Air Transport of three Super Freighters in their own right on the vehicle ferryservices from Le Touquet and Calais to Lydd, and from Cherbourg to Hurn. In return, French Railways, major shareholders in CAT,have agreed to build a two-mile railway spur into Le Touquet Airport. This, in effect, will integrate the Silver City network—which is to be extended to Blackpool, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds/Bradford, Birmingham, Newcastle, Edinburgh andGlasgow—with not only the French but also the European railway system. The significance of Silver City's two miles of railway line is thatpassenger services will assume a much greater proportion of the airline's sales effort; if sufficient travellers can be attracted to theLe Touquet railhead, new equipment for car ferries can be post- poned until the airline is in a sufficiently profitable position tojustify the outlay of capital to P & O—a shipping company which has seen a poor return on die Hermes so expensively boughtin 1958. Last week the airline's chairman, Mr Eoin C. Mekie, could notsay when the rail spur would be completed; he was releasing the news now because already travel agents were planning for the 1962summer season. The full effect would not be apparent until next year. He did not expect to run car ferry services from the northerncities this year as "all our aircraft will be fully committed on the shorter-range routes." He did not know the cost of the spur, butit was "very substantial." On the subject of new aircraft Mr Mekie would not be drawn, though it had always been his ambition to useaircraft "built by a consortium of British and French companies." It seems reasonable to speculate that, if Silver City want increasedcapacity quickly, a suitable aircraft might be the Breguet 763. So far as Silver City's current season is concerned, bookings are,in the words of the chairman, "extremely high." The need for new equipment is not yet, it seems, pressing SilyerCity too hard, and it is not likely that we shall be hearing of a major order for a new type of aircraft for some time.The new alliance will do little to increase utilization of the Bristol fleet, as the 170s are to be confined to the sea crossings fromLydd, Manston or Hurn. But another effect which it may have is to squeeze Channel Air Bridge out of interior France, and off thedeeper-penetration routes to Lyons and Strasbourg. Unless some agreement can be reached with the French Government (or FrenchRailways, who are likely to be main opponents of the "deeper penetration" proposals), or new services can be opened up else-where, Silver City may have temporarily blocked their rivals' next proposals for re-equipment and expansion. BOAC's BARGAIN BASEMENT SINCE last week's review of the news that the IATA cargo^ tariffs conference in Paris had broken down, the leading contestants have put some cards on the table. The accompanyinggraph shows the existing London - New York fare structure, with the two "weight breaks" at 45kg and 500kg, together with theproposals for reduced rates put forward by Pan American, TWA and BOAC. The British corporation appears to have decided on cuts which,as was said after the conference by Mr Gilbert Lee, commercial director, would indeed "produce a lower overall rate than anyother recommended." The corporation is proposing to introduce, London - New York cargo rates, present and proposed and will introduce on April 10 if no agreement is reached, threenew weight breaks. The upper one, at 1,000kg, cuts the rate to that proposed by Pan American and TWA at 7,500kg. For the momentBOAC is not disclosing its hand insofar as changes to the existing 45kg and 100kg weight breaks are concerned; but informed reportssuggest that, in common with other European carriers, BOAC want to leave charges for shipments of these weights at theirpresent levels. It will be seen that Pan American and TWA are proposing reductions at these lower weights, and it remains to beseen whether BOAC, and other European carriers such as KLM, will also cut rates at these lower weights if war breaks out. But the fundamental aspect of the BOAC proposal is the bigreductions recommended for the heavier shipments. This is a reflection of the need to fill the vastly increased freight capacitynow being scheduled by the corporation both on its all-freight DC-7F services and on its 707 passenger services. The proposalto slash rates for shipments of 1,000kg and over from the present 13s to less than 5s promises the realisation of the freight "break-through" that the airlines have so long been talking about. Obviously, the proposed BOAC across-the-board reductions willinevitably undermine many of the special commodity rates on which the transatlantic freight business has been largely built,and which BOAC, KLM and the other European carriers—unlike the American operators—do not yet want to discard. BOAC, infact, say that they are considering "even lower rates for selected commodities to encourage greater use of air transport inspecialized export trades." So that, as well as offering the lowest across-the-board rates, the British corporation will also be offeringsome of the best special-commodity bargains.
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