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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1169.PDF
FLIGHT, 24 August 1961 271 affecting the exercise of the Board's functions. That may well in-clude things like inter-goyernmental agreements, pooling agreements and so on"—but it was for the Minister, and the Minister alone, todecide whether a licence should not be granted on the grounds that it would be inexpedient because of inter-governmental agreements.Mr Harvey: "Supposing the Minister advised the Board, "I do not think it is impossible but it might make a lot of difficulties, youknow, if another operator came in.' Was the Board not to pay attention to that?" Mr Gardiner submitted: "Certainly not." Itwas. he said, quite clear that inter-governmental agreements were deliberately excluded from the matters that the Board had to con-sider in sub-section (2). Mr Harvey: "I do not quite see why the Board should consult with the Minister if it is not to pay any atten-tion to what he says, unless he says 'I direct you to refuse.' " Mr Gardiner replied that this was construing the Act as meaning thatit was the Minister who was to advise the Board. He ventured to think that the opposite was the intention. The words "consult to-gether" were quits neutral; the draughtsman of the Act may well have had in mind that the Board might form a view on inter-governmental agreements and that they might tell the Minister of their view. But lhe Minister was the only person who had the rightto decide that a licence should be refused on these grounds. Mr Harvey: "Supposing the Board receives information from the•Minister, you say the Board is not to pay any attention to it even as a sort of balancing factor?" "Certainly not." replied MrGardiner, "because it is the Minister's responsibility to decide." Consulting With The Minister Mr Harvey: "Supposing the Board found other considerationsto be very nicely balanced. Then they consult with the Minister and the Ministei were to say, 'Well, you know, if you grant a licenceit will make a lot of difficulties for me,' would not the Board say that tips the balance against the application?" Mr Gardiner:"No"—the question of inter-govemmental agreements was not among the matters to be considered by the Board as set out in sub-section (2). Did this not. asked Mr Harvey, deprive Section 2(3 ) of meaning? Mr Gardiner: "It was no good the Minister saying."I don't want to decide this,' because the answer should be "you had better redraft the section." The Board's answer to the Ministerwould be: 'We shall be happy to supply any evidence put before us and we shall be happy to consult about it and about the questionwhether licences should be refused on these grounds.' " Mr Bagnall asked whether, as a result of consulting with theMinister, the Board might conclude that there would be material diversion. Mr Gardiner replied: "That might be a relevant con-sideration." Mr James referred to Regulation 10(10) which laid down that the Board should give reasons for its decision, though itshould not disclose information received from the Minister in the course of consultation about inter-governmental agreements. Thissuggested, thought Mr Harvey, that the information received from ihe Minister might be the reason for their decision. Mr Gardinerthought this was wrong—the regulation could not control the Act. If the Board refused a licence on the grounds that it would conflictwith relations with other countries, withholding information received from the Minister, this would be a void decision in law—becauseon the true construction of Section 2(2) of the Act that was not a matter the Board was entitled to take into account. It could neverhave been intended that the Board might take a different view from the Minister. The Chairman intervened to end theseexchanges. If licences were granted, continued Mr Gardiner, no possibleharm could be done to BEA. One of three things would happen. Either foreign governments would say 'not at any price." and theindependent would not be able to operate. Or they would say "yes certainly"—which is what they had usually said so far. Or theywould say "only if BEA agrees to reduce its present capacity by an equal amount." If they said that, negotiations would no doubttake place between the independent and BEA. If the corporation's attitude was still "our chairman will not see your chairman," then the Minister would say one of three things to BEA: (1) You willhave to give up a share; (2) The Act was a mistake and I will not allow you to give up a share; (3) We will all go together to theforeign government and take a very much tougher line than we have in the past. In no event, said Mr Gardiner, could the granting ofa licence ham; BEA. The third large red herring. Mr Gardiner submitted, was pooling.A pooling agreement was rot a "commercial agreement" within the meaning of the Act. and anyway pooling agreements were notadmissible as they had not been produced in evidence. Mr Gardiner recalled Mr Collingwood's agreement with his suggestion thatbilaterals did not force pooling on anybody, and Mr Wheatcroft's evidence that he still thought, as he had written in his book, thatthe case for pooling was not proved. During the first few days of the case a great deal had been saidabout pooling, then quite suddenly the whole question disappeared. One could well understand the temptation to two partners to say."We must not disclose this agreement because that would never do ... the great thing is to keep everybody else out." If poolingagreements were relevant, and if they had been put in—which they had not been because they were secret—then the Board ought toadvise the Minister, from the little it had heard of these agreements, whether they were in the interests of British civil aviation. Mr Gardiner stressed the value of competition, which gave thepublic a choice of airline, a choice of aircraft and a choice of services. And BUA would have a much louder voice in 1ATA:BEA had made about £2m profit in the last two years, but while its costs were falling and while Mr Milward was in favour of gradu-ally reducing fares, it was at the moment supporting a proposal to increase lares all round in Europe. Perhaps the unhappiest piece of evidence of any that had beengiven was that by Mr Milward when he. Mr Gardiner, had asked: "As far as Paris is concerned, it is virtually a monopoly?" MrMilward: "Yes, I think that is so." Mr Gardiner: "And whether the service is good or bad. as it is a monopoly there is nothing thepublic can do about it?" Mr Milward: "They can go by other means, by surface travel." BEA's attitude was: "We have ourpooling agreement with Air France and we don't care whether anybody goes by BEA or Air France. If they can't get on theplane they can go by train or boat." That, in his submission, was not the riuht attitude for an airline to adopt. The Domestic Applications Then began the second phase of Meeting 21 : the hearing ofapplications for domestic services. A letter from the Northern Ireland advisory committee supported the application of CEA tooperate a service to Belfast. It commented thai the general simi- larity of fares in the applications suggested some agreement betweenthe operators and expressed the hope that competition would bring fares down. A letter from the Isle of Man Airport Board was alsoread out. It stated the opinion that any reduction of BEA trallic would handicap their development of the Irish Sea routes andexpressed opposition to the granting of licences to CEA, though it would not object to the operation of IT flights to the Island byCEA. Mr Ashton Hill was then invited to go ahead with his presenta-tion of the CEA applications numbers A.I 120 (Gatwick - Liverpool - Isle of Man - Belfast), A. 1045 (Gatwick - Liverpool - Isle of Man)and A.I 121 (Gatwick -Liverpool). CEA intended to use Viscounts on all the routes from 1962. Certain jet types yet to be deliveredhad also been included: if the Board shared the fears expressed by Mr Wheatcroft about the danger of uneconomic jet competitionthey might limit CEA to the use of Viscounts initially. The ques- tions to be considered by the Board differed from those affectinginternational routes and the cheerful comments of Mr Collingwood on the subject of bilateral agreements would be missed. Mr Ashton Hill introduced as a statistical document an analysisof passenger traffic in the United Kingdom in 1960, issued by Bristol Aircraft Limited, who had agreed to CEA using it to support Now working up to their target utilization of more than 4,000hr a year, Riddle Airlines' Argosies fly every day, seven days a week, on "Logair" oper- ations for the USAF Logistics Command. This picture was taken at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, showing the double-ended loading in action. Out goes one load of parts to reduce USAF stocks and pipeline time, in goes a load destined for another USAF base
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