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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0345.PDF
FLIGHT, 16 March 1961 353 f/o/f o dozen UK airlines are now operating the Viscount, including Trad- air of Southend. Here is one of their two Vis- count 707s, purchased last year from Aer Lingus. Together with the com- pany's seven Vikings, Tradair Viscounts operate scheduled services, inclu- sive tours and charter flights from Southend NO MORE BLOOD CHITS SIX thousand pounds does not seem a high value to put on ahuman life lost in an air accident; but the point of the Warsaw Convention, enacted in the English law by the Carriage by Air Act,1932, was that it established the prima facie liability of an airline to compensate a passenger killed or injured in an accident. AsMr Ronald Bell (Con, Buckinghamshire South) said in the Com- mons on February 24: 'The passenger, while he loses by limita-tion on the amount which he can recover, does not have to argue about liability." The old Warsaw Convention of 1929 set an airline's liability at£3,000. Mr Bell was introducing a new Carriage by Air Act which will double this to £6,000. The purpose of this Bill is to repeal the1932 Act (which embodied the Warsaw Convention in English law) in accordance with the Hague Protocol of 1955. This protocol—which is now passing into English law—amended the Warsaw Convention in a number of important respects. For example:— (1) It removed doubts as to whether the passenger could escapethe £3,000 limitation by sueing the pilot or another employee of the airline; (2) It simplified ticketing requirements (previously aminor slip in writing out the ticket could deprive the carrier of protection under the Convention); (3) It defined more closely themeaning behind the words "wilful misconduct," which previously a passenger had to prove if he wanted greater damages. The new legislation will apply also to aircraft operated by H.M.Government, thus rendering unnecessary the signing of the familiar so-called "blood chits."A novel aspect of the Bill is that it introduces a French text into English law for the very first time. The Hague Protocol of 1955 isto be annexed to the English Act in the original French, which is the language to be interpreted in the event of any discrepancy withother texts. The Bill will now pass through the Committee stage before going to the Lords. It is hoped that other countries willfollow the UK example. The Hague Protocol needs 30 signatures for ratification as international law; so far only 18 states haveratified it. fares on international routes is now reduced. A German who pre-viously paid DM195 (£16 10s) for a ticket at the 1ATA fare between Hamburg and London, now pays DM185, again equivalent to£16 10s. But if he buys a ticket at Hamburg to fly on the domestic route to Frankfurt he pays, as always before, DM102. Previouslyequivalent to £8 13s, the cost of this fare in sterling terms is now £9 2s. In other words, visitors to Germany will pay the same asbefore to get there, but will find internal air travel more expensive. "WALK ON" TO CHITTAGONG A "WALK-ON" service apparently closely akin to that nowoperated in the US by Allegheny Airlines and by Eastern is to be introduced on March 25 by Pakistan International Airlines.From details so far released about the scheme by PlA's managing director. Air Cdre Nur Khan, it is not clear if tickets will be soldon the aircraft or if they will be bought immediately before board- ing. All that has been said is that the procedure will be "greatlysimplified," and that the reduction in costs and overheads which it should bring about will be used to lower fares to levels comparablewith those for second-class travel by rail. In fact the fare reductions on these air-bus services, which will beoperated initially in the East Wing of Pakistan, will be greater than the economics justify; it is intended that the service should be cross-subsidized by the more profitable routes which last year brought PI A a profit of £450,000. There are two reasons for this: firstly,PIA"s social obligations to provide air transport are nowhere so pressing as they are in East Pakistan. Secondly, the airline istrying to attract, by really low fares, travellers who have not previously been able to contemplate air travel. These fares arethus a long-term inducement for travel on the other services. The air-bus services will operate between Dacca, Sylhet, Shamshernagarand Chittagong and between Dacca and lshurdi. The existing Chittagong - Cox's Bazaar route will be converted to air-bus opera-tion. The fare, previously Rs20 (£1 10s) will now be only Rsl2 (18s). NEW-MARK FARES REVALUATION of the Deutsche Mark has not. contrary to somereports, affected the price in terms of pounds or dollars of anairline ticket to or from Western Germany. German internal fares, on the other hand, are now about 5 per cent more expensive, inpound or dollar terms, than they were before the rate of exchange was adjusted on March 6. Outside Germany, only the value of theMark has changed; fares have not. This means that the number of Deutsche Marks to be paid for VLF SHAMROCK IN the spring of next year Aer Lingus are planning to introduce"very low fares" on their short-haul routes, and are looking for anaircraft with a greater capacity and lower seat-mile cost than the Viscount 800. The airline has already begun preliminary discus-sions with other operators and with an aircraft manufacturer, believed to be Vickers. These plans were revealed in an address made recently by MrMichael Dargan, assistant general manager (commercial) of the Irish airline, to a meeting of European tour operators in Dublin."The airlines of the world need an aircraft that will seat, say, 100 or more people in reasonable, but not de luxe, comfort," he said."They will be built with journey-lengths of some 300 to 500 miles in mind, so as to allow direct operating costs substantially betterthan those of any aircraft so far available," said Mr Dargan. He continued: "1 am hopeful that we in Aer Lingus will shortly achievea seat-mile cost which will allow us to make a substantial reduc- tion in fares, possibly for the season beginning in the spring of 1962." Nothing is yet known about the equipment that Aer Lingusenvisage to implement these plans. Taking all factors into considera- tion, with emphasis on availability, operating economy, capacity,ranee and initial cost, it would seem that the Armstrong Whitworth AW.650 or 671, the Vanguard or the Britannia 100 (of whichBOAC have a surplus) offer the most attraction to an airline flying routes like those of Aer Lingus. Silver City are flying Renault Estavette vans from Le Touquet to Lydd. Both the import and export of cars by air is quickening as British motor industry production gets on its feet again
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