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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1746.PDF
852 FLIGHT, 30 November 1961 Cunard Eagle Western PART 2: IMPRESSIONS OF A BRITISH INDEPENDENT'S OPERATIONS IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE By the Air Transport Editor "FLIGHT" PHOTOGRAPHS LAST week's licensing setback for Cunard Eagle, who will not now be granted their North Atlantic route, is discussed on page 859. Meanwhile life goes on for this airline, which must now seek to expand in other directions. In "Flight" for November 2 the author described the commer- cial and political background to Cunard Eagle's operations linking Bermuda and the Bahamas with the USA. Here he recounts some more personal impressions of the airline and the places it serves.T WELVE hours after leaving London the soothing note ofour Proteus engines changed as we began the drift-down to Bermuda. The cabin staff had awoken us with a glass offresh iced orange juice—just what passengers need after a night in an airliner. A night in a Cunard Eagle Britannia is no more restful than onepassed in any other modern aircraft; but at least the cabin staff do not start the day with a hearty hospital-type reveille, clipping onthe tables before the customers have uncrumpled themselves. An independent making its debut in first-class international air trans-port will obviously do its utmost to impress; but I can truthfully say that I did not expect such polished and professional cabinservice, right down to the smallest detail, as this. The standard of service is as professional in every detail as that of BOAC, which issaying something. The captain was telling us about the weather (rain) and the tem-perature (70°F) in Bermuda, and the fact that we would be landing four minutes behind schedule. On a night flight over the oceanthere is no opportunity for public relations on the passenger- address system, something about which Cunard Eagle crews arepretty conscientious in waking hours, as I was to discover on sub- sequent flights. It does not do to disturb a sleeping cabin, temptingthough it must be to tell passengers to watch the dawn that breaks so beautifully and so slowly on a westbound flight high over theAtlantic. The sunrise that some of us were awake to see on this particular morning, had it been painted on canvas, would have beenrejected by the Royal Academy as preposterous. Pitch blackness, pricked by the piercing light of a lone planet, melted into bands ofblue, turquoise, green, yellow, orange and red, down into the black- ness of the ocean's waste. Watching the Landing After breakfast Capt Gage allowed my request to go up front towatch the landing. We were holding at 10,000ft because of other inbound traffic, a Guest Mexicana Comet 4C from Mexico City.The fuel gauges added up to 4,6001b/hr, but we had more than 2\ hours' fuel in hand—the company's minimum reserve for Bermuda,which is a long way from a diversion airfield. We had used the high-speed cruise technique rather than the long-range cruise; thisis standard company practice, the cost of the additional fuel being far outweighed by the saving in airframe and engine hours. A stewardess came up to report that the cabin was all in order.Capt Williams, the other skipper in the 24-hr crew employed on the London - Miami route, was making his approach on instru-ments. Mr Pilcher, the engineer officer, was in charge of the throttles, and Mr Dillon, the first officer, watched out for themoment of transition. All that could be seen through the windscreen was the contestbetween the wipers and the rain. To a passenger who had been sitting in the cabin for 12 hours we could have been anywhere—Hong Kong, East Acton, anywhere. Suddenly, there was the green island of Bermuda, its reefs andcoral-pink beaches lapped by seas, rough today, of purest blue. And there was Kindley Field, US sovereign territory in a BritishColony, the island's civil airport as well as a USAF base. A straight- in approach, past scores of parked KC-97s and F-lOOs, to a touch-down almost as imperceptible as Capt Gage's back at Gander. That one had been so good that we literally did not know, until thepropellers went into reverse, that we were down. The Britannia was going on to Nassau and Miami, where thecrew would spend a week before taking the next week's flight back to London. I was to join this flight at Miami, after having a lookround the Cunard Eagle parishes in Bermuda, New York, and Nassau. The Viscount approaches Miami Beach ... Cunard Eagle's man in Bermuda is Mr H. P. Snelling, generalmanager of the airline's western hemisphere division, with responsi- bility also for the Bahamas. We talked in his office at the airportwith the chief engineer, Mr J. Colthrup; the chief pilot, Capt M. Gudmundsson; Mr C. Martin, reservations manager, Bermuda;and the chief stewardess, Bermuda, Miss E. Smith. The whole Cunard Eagle operation in the western hemisphere hasBermuda as its hub. with spokes going out to London, New York, Nassau and Miami. It is here that the airline's two ex-CubanaViscount 755s. both VR- registered in Bermuda, are maintained. The operations are scheduled so that the two aircraft are inter-changed each week between the Bermuda - New York service (daily or twice-daily) and the Nassau - Miami service (four timesdaily). One aircraft is at Bermuda every day of the week, except one, from 8 a.m. until 4.30 p.m. undergoing checks, 1, 2 or 3 accord-ing to the progressive-maintenance schedule. Checks 4 are done every l,900hr at London, this being arranged to fall before the peakseason, which is Easter. A utilization of some 2,500hr a year is extracted from each Vis-count. There are 20 engineering staff, seven pilots and ten steward- esses based in Bermuda, and six pilots and ten stewardesses inMiami. Of the total of 13 pilots, six are first officers; each Viscount is crewed by two pilots and three stewardesses. Most of the pilotsare British, and all the stewardesses are British cr Bermudian. The mid-Atlantic route has now been operated for just over ayear, although the extension from Nassau to Miami was not intro- duced until February 1961. There was a dispute with BahamasAirways over Cunard Eagle's rights to carry Nassau - Miami sector traffic on this Britannia service, supplementary to that carried onthe established Viscount shuttles. This little argument between the Colony's two designated airlines was settled after a hearing beforethe Bahamas Air Licensing Authority, a settlement which led to a long overdue non-aggression pact between the two companies(see pages 734-735 of Flight for November 9). The Britannia route between London and Miami was CunardEagle's first break into the field of long-haul international scheduled services. It is a highly seasonal market, traffic flows following thesame sort of pattern as on the North Atlantic. First-class, economy and Skycoach (colonial-cabotage) seats are offered in the ratio14(F): 66(E): 18(S). First-class load factors have not so far been too high, although economy and Skycoach have attracted reasonableloads. The operation has not, as yet, reached the profitable stage.There has been evidence of a demand for more than the 72 Sky- coach seats offered per month; BOAC offer the same number,although on two fortnightly Britannia flights of 36 seats compared with CEA's four weekly Britannia flights of 18 seats. Skycoach,the cheap service for British residents between London and the Colonies, is operated in pool with BOAC, though first and economyare not. I formed the impression that CEA would like to put on
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