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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1096.PDF
198 FLIGHT, 10 August 1961 AIR COMMERCE Seen in flight together are the two Convair 990s now on FAA certification flight tests. Deliveries will begin before certification, which is due in December ATLB PUBLIC MEETING 21 (Continued) POPULATION of South-East England, continued Mr Franklin ofSilver City (stating his case for a service from Lyddor ManstontoBasle), was about lm (excluding London) and growing rapidly, andshould not have to travel, in the wrong direction, to London Airport or to Gatwick in order to go to the Continent. Silver City Airways be-lieved that their special fares and this growing population provided justification for the service for which they wanted a licence. Asked by Mr Marking of BEA whether he was confident about thefuture of IT charters, he said that he was guided by the tour operators, who seemed to be confident: he did not agree with those who said that itwas a dying business. Next application was Cunard Eagle's A. 1062, for a service betweenLondon and Geneva. Mr Ashton Hill introduced Cunard Eagle's document for the route, showing an estimated traffic growth of 104,000between 1960-61 and 1965-66, compared with Cunard Eagle's estimate for their own traffic in 1965-66 of 11,000—10 per cent of the growthfigure. The services of the eight existing carriers on the route were listed and Mr Ashton Hill commented on the use of DC-6s by Swissairin the summer in competition with BEA's Comets. Mr Collingwood, once again the witness for BEA's objection, wasquestioned by Mr Marking about particular aspects of the bilateral agreement affecting this route. He said that British and Commonwealthstates other than the United Kingdom were not covered by it: they had their own bilateral agreements with Switzerland. On the designationof one operator for one route, he quoted the clause of the agreement saying that "an airline will be designated in respect of each service."The 1959 revision of the agreement contained a detailed schedule of the routes and designated airlines; this bore out the principle of oneoperator for one route. Fifth and sixth freedom operators had carried four per cent of the total traffic in the previous year. Next came Tradair's application A. 1271, for a service from Southendto Klagenfurt between May 1 and October 15 each year. Mr Porter said that Tradair hoped to run a pilot scheme in the summer of 1962,and planned to run five services weekly, all daytime flights, by the summer of 1963. The IT fare of £29 13s would be applied. Next came Cunard Eagle's application A.1O63, for a service toCopenhagen and/or Stockholm. Mr Ashton Hill introduced Cunard Eagle's supporting documentand gave details of the service at present operated by the four carriers on the route, including Japan Air Lines and Pan American to Copen-hagen. He estimated a traffic growth of 108,000 to Copenhagen and 33,000 to Stockholm between 1960-61 and 1965-66. Of this, CunardEagle hoped to carry 15,000 to Copenhagen and 5,000 to Stockholm by 1965-66—14 per cent and 15 per cent of the growth respectively. Cunard Eagle in Scandinavia Cunard Eagle had offices in Stockholm and were already designated as carriers ex Manchester to Copenhagen in the Anglo-Danish bilateral agreement. The Swedish bilateral agreement was more liberal in its terms.Mr Collingwood, for BEA, gave his usual evidence about the implica- tions of the bilateral agreements, and suggested that BEA were alreadytaking up the full British share of the traffic on the London - Copen- hagen and London - Stockholm routes. He said that SAS had sufferedvery serious financial reverses and had undergone drastic reorganiza- tion, so that it was difficult to forecast what their attitude might be,but it was unlikely that they would welcome another operator on these routes.Application A.1029, by BUA for a service from Gatwick to Tarbes on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, between March and October,was opposed by BOAC and EAFS only. There was no cross-examina- tion by the objectors.Application A.1027, also by BUA, was for a service from Gatwick to Nice, and was opposed by EAFS. Skyways, BEA and BOAC. MrWhybrow confirmed that BUA had carried 2,071 passengers on inclusive tour flights to Nice in 1960. They were asking for a round trip capacityof 22,400 seats per annum and estimated that their carryings would represent 6.9 per cent of the 1960 air traffic at a load factor of 35 percent and 11.9 per cent at 60 per cent. Giving evidence for BEA's objection, Mr Collingwood confirmed thatNice came within the ambit of the Anglo-French bilateral agreement in HERE is our seventh report on the Air Transport Licensing Boardhearings in the big European route case that began on June 20. So much of interest has been spoken by applicants and objectors that it has beendifficult to decide what to leave out of our summaries; we have therefore continued to sacrifice some topicality in order to keep the record reasonablycomplete. The international hearings finished on July 28; the domestic hearings lasted three days and finished on August 2. the same way as the London - Paris route. Air France had not operatedto Nice for some years but were now operating and were returning to parity with BEA. BEA carried 57 per cent of the traffic, Air France 34per cent and other operators the remaining 9 per cent. Mr Collingwood was cross-examined by Mr Gardiner who, havingasked whether there were any fifth or sixth freedom operators, suggested that the route was a straight BEA/ Air France monopoly.Mrs Whittaker presented the case for Skyways' objection to BUA's application, producing facts to demonstrate Skyways' interest in thearea, and suggesting that Skyways had a prior claim to the right to serve it. Counsel for BUA cross-examined Mrs Whittaker on Skyways'discontinued Coach-air service to Nice and their ordinary scheduled services to other points in France. Mrs Whittaker said that the Niceservice had been by air to Lyons, with a coach connection to Nice. Their other services were to Lyons, Vichy, Montpellier and Tours. Applications for Nice The next application was A. 1058 by Cunard Eagle Airways, for aservice from London to Nice and/or Palermo and/or Malta. Introducing the Cunard Eagle supporting document, Mr AshtonHill said that CEA were making applications for two services to Nice, the one under consideration and another from Manchester. The docu-ment covered both. He estimated that the traffic to Nice would increase by 113,000 between 1960-61 and 1965-66 and that CEA would carry8,000 passengers London - Nice in 1965-66, operating nine flights weekly in the summer and three in the winter. There had been 72,000passengers to Malta in 1960. Malta had ambitious plans for the develop- ment of its tourist industry and CEA suggested that there should be180,000 passengers by 1965-66 of whom they hoped to carry 13,000. CEA had also applied for the Malta route and had received alicence from the Government of Malta dated June 5, 1959; this showed that Malta was willing to allow them to operate to the island. Giving evidence for BEA's objection, Mr Collingwood said thatPalermo was not covered by the Anglo-Italian bilateral agreement; BEA were operating on a temporary permit.Mr Marking asked Mr Collingwood to quote the present schedules to Malta and the fares, also load factors for April/June 1960 and 1961(73 per cent and 67 per cent). Mr Collingwood said that a high load factor was essential to the maintenance of low fares; the introductionof an additional carrier would probably reduce the load factor and might make it necessary to raise fares. The Board asked the break-even load factor for the fares in force; witness suggested it would be in the 70s. The Board proceeded with the hearing of application No A.1003,by BUA, for a daily service between Gatwick and Genoa. After Mr Gardiner had produced the usual BUA supporting document, emphasiz-ing in his introductory remarks that there had been 1.5m British visitors to Italy in 1960 and only 54,000 Italian visitors to Britain, Mr Why-brow was called as the BUA witness. He confirmed the statistics and estimates in the document and saidthat, as this was a new route, the traffic would also be new, augmented by some which had in the past been carried by surface transport. BUAmight be able to start in 1962 if the Genoa airport were completed in time, but this was unlikely. Mr Marking of BEA began his cross-examination by referring toBUA's objection to BEA's application for this route and suggested that BUA's attitude to competition was different in this case. Mr Why-brow said that BUA, if licensed on the route, would want some degree of protection initially, but would accept competition from a second Britishcarrier—provided their own frequency was not restricted—when traffic had reached 50-70,000 passengers per annum. Asked about the implica-tions of the bilateral agreement, Mr Whybrow thought that the Italians
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