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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0641.PDF
FLIGHT International, 26 April 1962 639 AIR CO E R C E The Big Appeal NOW drawing to a close is a historic phase in British civil aviation —the hearings by a commissioner appointed by the Minister of Aviation to consider appeals by BEA against the Air Transport Licensing Board's award of licences to independents to operate domestic and international scheduled services. A striking feature of these hearings has been the lack of excitement—the setting is one of droning voices and rustling papers, watched only by a handful of participants, the public and the Press being conspicuous by their absence. Another notable feature has been the sensible and sympathetic attitude of the commissioner, Sir Arthur Hutchinson. The appeal opened with procedural arguments about the admissibility of new evidence and general submissions by BEA and BUA. For BEA, the corporation's secretary, Mr Henry Marking, traced the legal background to the appeals and then described the grounds of BEA's objection. A twin theme ran through his com ments : on the one hand, that the Board had wrongly based their awards on a preconceived view about the desirability of com petition between British carriers; and, on the other hand, that the Board had failed to take proper account of the effect that these awards would have on BEA. Speaking on behalf of BUA, Mr Gerald Gardiner, QC, gave another—ard rather different—version of the legal background, and then went on to explain how reasonable the Board's decision had been. Here again a twin theme could be detected: first, that the licensing of BUA in parallel to BEA would strengthen the British effort by injecting a little more energy and imagination into the selling of seats and the buying of traffic rights; and, secondly, that the licences granted, although trivial in relation to BEA's total business, were the minimum that would enable BUA to survive. In addition to the general submissions, the two parties also called witnesses. For the corporation, Mr Anthony Milward, chief executive, painted a gloomy picture of the damage likely to flow from a policy of dual dssignation; ard two members of the Institut du Transport Aerien commented on a recent study by their organiza tion demonstrating the likelihood of continuing excess capacity in Europe. For BUA, Mr Myles Wyatt and Mr F. A. Laker, chairman and executive director respectively, concentrated on various aspects of their order for ten BAC One-Elevens. The general evidence then complete, the commissioner turned to the individual BUA licences, starting with London-Paris—which took a whole afternoon—and finishing at the end of the first week with London - Athens—which took only a few minutes. The second week of the hearing opened with a summarizing speech by Mr Gardiner on behalf of BUA. The court turned to a consideration of Cunard Eagle's licences, starting with a general statement by Mr Gardiner (now wearing his CEA hat) in which he
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