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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0759.PDF
f'T, 1 June 1961 769 (£) Straight and Level CONNOISSEURS of British airshows will return from theParis aeronautical salon, as Ihave just done, with an odd collection of impressions. Is it a junket? Is the time and effort involved worth while? All 1 can say is that if any British firm with designs on the world market wasn't there it should have been. Absentees are conspicuous at this show, the most competitive aviation trade occasion in the world. On every stand, around every aero- plane, there is a market-place atmos- phere of sell, sell, sell. People climb into aeroplanes and fly them. I don't know whether anyone actually sells anything, but as I contemplate for- eigners in dark glasses earnestly dis- cussing new products, I feel sure that the Paris Salon is to the British air- craft industry as the European Com- mon Market is to Britain as a whole. We must be either in or out, not hover- ing indecisively over the middle of the Channel. • "/ don't believe the public would suffer—and, after all, it's the public we are concerned with in [air transport]." Mr Clive Hunting, president of the British Independent Air Transport Association. Good gracious, pass me the sal volatile. I had almost forgotten this basic truth. Certainly Parliament did so when it passed the 1960 Civil Avia- tion Act. You can read that Act a million times, but nowhere will you find any care for the public interest. The object of the legislation was to "further the development of British civil aviation." Right up to the last minute the word "civil" was left out, then someone in the Ministry popped it in without reference to Parliament, realizing that British aviation includes the RAF, Fleet Air Arm and Associa- tion of British Spotters Clubs as well asthe airlines. But the poor old public interest is left out; and everything thatis done to "further the development of British aviation" is not done in thename of the public. • At last BOAC and BEA are having to account to someone other than them- selves for their pool agreements, and high time too. The Air Transport Licensing Board has recently been looking in to some of these secret revenue-sharing deals. The corporations will not hesitate to brandish their pool agreements at any independent who bids for an interna- tional route. I think that pools are going to be the biggest single obstacle to independent progress—including for- eign traffic rights, which pools buy off. So it is as well for the Board to know what pools are all about. If I were an independent I would make an issue of state-airline pooling cartels blocking the way to private- airline enterprise and initiative. Not only would I thus be fulfilling the proper function of an independent, constructively challenging needling and testing everything the corporations do and the way they do it. I would also be attacking an obstacle to my progress, which is good business. Alas, I don't think the independents have thought very much along these lines, because both our leading ones, British United and Cunard Eagle, are themselves in pool with the corporations. * * * What I am afraid of is that the Board will give its blessing to pool agreements. It will find that pooling is a nice easy way of solving the delicate licensing problems that are now confronting it. Unfortunately, pooling would render completely meaningless all that has been spoken or written about the con- * • t* • I'm afraid I don't know what's going on here, but let me guess. It's the roll-out of a new aircraft designed and built by the Singaling Hkamti Aircraft Co of Burma, and with it are employees of the firm's tin - bashing depart- ment. The aircraft, needless to say, is in- tended as a DC-3 re- placement I wish the Russians would tell us more about their methods of obtaining quick turn-rounds in air transport operations. All I've had from them so far is this picture of whice mice embarking by rope in a model of an 11-14. In charge of ground handling is Vladimir Durov of the Moscow State Circus tribution that private enterprise can make to British air transport. Every- thing that is supposed to make air transport tick—competition, service to the public, widening of choice, price pioneering—all this is doubletalk in the context of a pool. Pooling makes airlines lazy. You can't lose if you are in pool so you don't need to try very hard. And even if there are incentive clauses, you spend more time watching your partner than you do concentrating on your own game. Moreover, there is always the possibility that one airline has to carry another, as I suspect BOAC are carry- ing South African Airways, Air-India and Qantas at the present time. The poor old passenger meanwhile has to book about five years ahead if he wants an airline seat. Who will join me in a DOWN WITH POOLS banner- march to the offices of the Air Trans- port Licensing Board? Notices about the time and place of assembly will be published shortly. ROGER BACON • "Although RAF Thor training courses will be carried out in this country, crews will not be able to get actual flying experience here—Reuter report.
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