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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 1395.PDF
FLIGHT International, 9 August 1962 205 Airline Profile /NUMBER SIX IN THE SERIES ^^r Cathay Pacific ^r Airways By Maurice Curtis This year, to help in meeting increased competition, Cathay took delivery of a Convair 880. Another may soon be needed THE name itself outlines the profile of Cathay Pacific Airways. It neatly defines the area in which the company operates— the Far East and adjacent Pacific regions. Cathay, the name by which China was known to the early explorers and traders in those parts, is a reminder that the company is closely associated with the early China trade—actually through the old-established shipping and trading firm of Butterfield & Swire, which has a large interest in the airline and is responsible for its day-to-day manage ment. Probably most important of all, the name implies that Cathay Pacific is not tied to any particular country; it has no aspirations to be the "national airline" of any one country, but exists to serve the Cathay and Pacific areas as a whole. During several days' intensive travelling over Cathay's routes, and talking to many fellow-passengers, travel agents, airport authorities, and so on, it quickly became apparent to the writer that in the 16 years of its existence the airline has built up a solid reputa tion for down-to-earth commercial commonsense, for almost unrivalled knowledge of its markets, for service to its customers, and for that essential key to airline success—no compromising with safety and reliability. Cathay is probably the perfect illustration of the fact—which many other operators, intent on building up their airlines mainly for prestige reasons, would do well to recognize—that more prestige accrues from showing that aircraft can be used as profit-earning vehicles than from operating large and expensive aeroplanes to far-away places at great cost to the taxpayer. Although as a private company it does not publish accounts, one understands that it consistently makes profits. From its first adventurous founding the company was destined to become a power in the aviation pattern of the Far East. From the beginning, its founders regarded an aircraft as a vehicle to carry goods and passengers with the object of earning profits. The conception of converting its early speculative operations into an airline emerged later—but profitability remained the main objective of the company, and its network developed from the continuous search for profitable operations. USAAF American Roy Farrell and RAF Australian Sydney DeKantzow (most regrettably killed in a car crash a few years ago) met as pilots doing their stint over the Burma "hump"; and, as the war came to an end, and cheap Dakotas became available, they decided that flying scarce, high-value, low-bulk goods from the comparative plenty of Australia to war-starved China and adjacent territories would reap quick rewards. Trade was their principal object and Dakotas were the ready-to-hand vehicles; if sub marines or MTBs would have suited the trade better then Cathay Pacific would probably not have been born. From that down-to- earth start DeKantzow and Farrell soon realized that there was a dearth of quick transport between the still war-reeling cities of the Ear East. An assortment of Dakotas and Catalinas was quickly built up and the route-pattern began to take shape, based purely on the demands of the traffic. The principal cities then served were Hong Kong (the base). Macao, Manila, Bangkok and Singapore— with, of course, periodic special flights to Australia. In 1948 Hong Kong was the scene of one of those now almost- forgotten post-war scrambles for air routes in which Skyways, headed by General A. C. Critchley, attempted to become established in the Colonies by bidding for Cathay Pacific. BOAC countered by the establishment of another company, Hong Kong Airways, and. in spite of the protestations of Skyways, the routes centred on Hong Kong were carved up between Cathay Pacific and Hong Kong Airways—only to be merged some ten years later under Cathay Pacific. An outcome of this scramble was that the Butterfield & Swire shipping and trading group, in conjunction with Australian National Airways, purchased in 1948 a substantial controlling interest in Cathay, and from this point the company steadily pro gressed from a pioneering and catch-as-catch-can operator to its present status as one of the most reputable and respected scheduled and charter operators in the Far East. Two episodes in its early history deserve mention as typical of the risks and uncertainties which have always attended pioneering ventures in the China Seas. Cathay Pacific was the first company known to be the victim of a practice which has recently become popular in other parts of the world—air piracy. One of their Catalinas crashed between Macao and Hong Kong on July 16, 1948, and then followed investigations and discoveries which sound remarkably like an Ian Fleming/James Bond plot. Salvage of the wreckage revealed bullet holes, and used cartridge cases were found in the sludge in the wrecked fuselage. The Chinese sole survivor's story as to why he was in the aircraft did not ring true, so he was subjected to various devices of the crime-detection trade, including microphones in his hospital bed, a decoy patient as his neighbour in the ward, and so on. The outcome was the definite conclusion by the Macao authorities that a gang, including a Chinese pilot of very scanty experience, had attempted to take over the aircraft and direct it to a pirates' lair in Chinese territory. Presumably they had reason to believe there was a valuable cargo aboard—probably gold—and that some of the Chinese passengers would fetch hand some ransom money. Unfortunately, the Catalina's crew decided to fight it out—with the calamitous crash result. The second reminder of the earlier perils of the China Coast was the shooting down of a Cathay DC-4 by Chinese fighters off Hainan Island on July 23, 1954. Fortunately, under extremely difficult conditions, Capt Phil Blown succeeded in ditching the aircraft, and he and his first officer were both awarded the Queen's Commenda tion for Valuable Service in the Air. The commercial impact of this incident was lessened by quick action on the part of Mr J. M. Swire, who, over the phone, purchased from Canadian Pacific Airways a DC-4; it was on the company's routes within three weeks. Purchase of the original DC-4 from KLM in 1949 had, in fact, been the first major step towards larger equipment, fully competitive with that of other operators on the Far East regional services, and this was the starting point of Cathay's reputation as one of those few enterprising operators who decided that they would make their own rules for commercial success in the air instead of blindly following the so-called "accepted practices" in aviation. Few
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