FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0713.PDF
FLIGHT International, 3 May 1962 711 ylach warning horn senser and auto-trim. "The drag is a bit higher," says Capt Shams, "but the extra fuel consumption is balanced by the faster time." He says that UAA have not yet decided on their jet replacement for the Viscount. The BAC-107 project with two Bristol Siddeley BS.75 turbofans has impressed them the most, he says. The 107 is ''ideal" from the point of view of size, field performance and range. But UAA are looking closely at the BAC One-Eleven and particu larly at its field performance, which they hope will be adequate without the need for Krueger flaps. A fleet of five small jets will be needed to replace UAA's five Viscounts. Capt Shams foresees the Comet taking over some Viscount routes, with One-Elevens—if this is the aircraft chosen—taking over the other Viscount routes as well as DC-3 routes. UAA have not, he says, been approached by Douglas with the Model 2086. Asked how much the airline spends on maintenance and over haul, the chief engineer, Mr Shehab El Din, says: "1 cannot say yet what the budget is for next year, but whatever it is I will beat it." Total cost per hour of the Comet is £E392 and for the Viscount £E150. Mr El Din, a student at the de Havilland Tech nical School in pre-war days, says that from the maintenance point of view the Comet is "better than we had ever thought. As far as maintenance is concerned, it is the best aircraft in my experience. It is really excellent." "DH should sell more of these Comets" UAA tackle everything in the way of maintenance except turbine engine overhauls (done at Derby, with Avon changes scheduled at London). Plans are afoot for Darts and Avons to be overhauled at a new facility at Cairo. With the exception of components, which are replaced under exchange schemes with companies like Smiths, Dunlop and Ferranti, UAA. also undertake component overhauls themselves, about 60 per cent of the total involved. Mr El Din seemed a little unhappy about the parts support given by certain British manufacturers, whom he freely named (two of them were those about whom MEA had complained to Flight International the week before). "Some are very bad," he says, "de Havilland do their best but there is nothing to compel those who are bad to do better. Some manufacturers do not seem to plan ahead enough— they will only manufacture a part when it is ordered." The position on time-expired components, he says, is satisfactory, only ten items being found lacking out of 250 on a recent check 4. It is the problem of unscheduled replacements which can be difficult. On the whole there has, he says, been very little trouble with the Comet—"it is better even than the Viscount." Mr El Din's only disappointment in the Comet is that it did not appear to him to have been sold hard enough—"de Havilland ought to sell a lot more of these Comets," he says. There are about 600 people in the engineering department, from boys fresh out of the ttaining school earning about £2 10s a week to more senior staff earning about £45 a month or up to £120 for most senior ranks. Labour rates are low, but at this stage of the airline's evolution work takes longer and more inspection is required. Seven years ago there were some mechanics who could not read or write; the standard of education is now high and salaries have doubled in the last seven years. The working week is six days of seven-and-a- half hours, all work—as in most hot countries—being done in the mornings from 6.30/7.30 a.m. to 2.00/3.00 p.m. The desert wind, or khamsin, which blows for 50 days around March and April, brings its own problems to the maintenance department. When it blows the dust gets in everywhere and "many jobs you do one day you must do again the next." A little domestic battle being fought within UAA at the moment involves the need for more planning people on the engineering side. k seems relatively easy to get sanction for staff whose work is seen to be productive; it is less easy, apparently, to convince management that planning staff who are not directly productive can achieve big economies—as the present small planning staff of six are doing. UAA admit that their present maintenance hangar is inadequate, and that it will be even more so when all seven Comets are fully at work. At the moment three Comets are in the air and two on ! he ground at any given time. The position will of course be aggravated when the big jets come along, and plans are already in hand for a big new maintenance hangar. Matters would have been uorse had the Comet check cycle and work programme not proved better than forecast. The check 1 every 125hr was originally planned for two days and in fact takes one; a check 2 (375hr) takes two instead of five; a check 3 (l,500hr) takes three instead of seven, and a check 4 (3,000hr) takes six weeks instead of eight weeks originally planned. A link with the old days of Misrair is embodied in the engaging personality of Mr Kamal Eloui who, with Mr Alan Muntz of Airwork, was one of the original two founder-directors in 1931. Today he is commercial inspector-general, and he talks with quiet unboastful pride about the achievement of his aim 30 years ago— which he himself has done much to bring about—to create "a first-class Egyptian airline operated by first-class Egyptian per sonnel." Egypt is no different from any other country in its desire to have an airline of which it can be proud. This it has now got; but there is no cocky boasting of the "we're as good as you" kind. The airline is run on commercial lines to a strict system of budgetary control and the way the pounds and piastres are spent is all freely published and available. In the year 1960, as can be seen from page 83 of ICAO Digest of Statistics No 87, there was an operating profit of 1117,777; results for 1961 are not yet published, but, says Mr Eloui, "taking the past two years together we have practically covered our expenses despite the big initial cost of introducing Comets." Busiest route, with 28,000 passengers carried in 1961 at a 60 per cent load factor, was Cairo - Beirut. On the London route, opened in July 1960, 6,700 passengers were carried last year at a 46 per cent load factor. The Accra/Lagos route, opened in March 1961, achieved a 42 per cent load factor, with 2,900 pas sengers carried; the Moscow route, opened in June 1961, was only 24 per cent full with 1,200 passengers carried, and is admitted by UAA to be uneconomic. UAA cannot be classed, for all the unboastful nationalism of its staff, as a sort of status symbol to be kept in the forefront of inter national air transport at any price. It exists for the visitors who watch the history of the Pyramids in son et lumiire, a show put on by the department of tourism at a cost of some £230,000 about a year ago. UAA exists for the visitors who find themselves, when confronted with the treasures of King Tutankhamen in the Cairo Museum, stupefied. And it is in being for those who take the UAA Viscount to Luxor, to be amazed and enchanted by some of the most priceless treasures of human civili zation, the tombs of the Pharoahs in the Valley of the Kings. UAA exists for tne good commercial reason that people—half a million of them last year—want to visit Egypt. The mileage of UAA's route network has doubled in one year—and further extensions are planned. On May 19 Tokyo will be served; and in April 1964 New York, and probably also Rio de Janeiro, will be on this map
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
