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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 0046.PDF
42 FLIGHT International, 10 January 1963 Mr luan T. Trippe (left), president of Port American World Airways, and Mr Charles C. Tillinghast (president of TWA) signing the agreement on December 10 to seek approval for the merger of their two airlines. A review of the proposed merger terms appeared on page S of last week's issue of this journal AIR COMMERCE Ferry Traffic Surveyed QUITE the most remarkable thing about the British United Air Ferries market survey just published is the fact that it has been published at all. This thorough analysis of the potential demand for new long haul Carvair services might well, in the hands of less enlightened companies, have been kept under lock and key in the board room, so that not a single conclusion might have leaked to competitors. Among these in the case of British United Air Ferries may be counted BEA, their foreign partners operating to Britain, and the boats operated by British and French Railways, Townsend Brothers, and others. It must be assumed, therefore, that the management of British United Air Ferries believes that the sort of information revealed by this survey enriches the whole industry, and that the production of more transport, no matter by whom, will enrich British United Air Ferries. The survey was conducted during the two weeks July 9-15 and August 6-12,1962, by means of a special questionnaire for each route, which a proportion of outbound car drivers were asked to complete. Cards were distributed, route-coded by colour, on the Bristol 170 routes from Lydd to Le Touquet, Calais and Ostend; from Hum to Cherbourg; from Southend to Calais, Ostend and Rotterdam; and—perhaps the most important—on the new long- haul Carvair routes from Southend to Rotterdam, Basle, Geneva and Strasbourg. These latter "penetration" routes were themselves the result of a market survey carried out by Channel Air Bridge (as it then was) at various times in 1958, 1959 and 1960. Response was good. Of 2,800 cards issued 76 per cent were com pleted, and this accounted for very nearly half the total outbound car traffic. Assessment of the demand for new "penetration" routes was clearly the main motive of the survey; and drivers were asked to record their interest in several proposed longer-range routes from their airport of departure. The actual fare was appended, e.g. (in alphabetical order): Bordeaux, £100; Bremen, £85; Cler mont Ferrand, £90; Cologne, £75; Esbjerg (Denmark), £90; Luxembourg, £65; Maastricht (Aachen), £60; Nimes, £105. Respondents were asked to "score" each service, i.e. 0 to indicate "not interested," 1 "might possibly use," 2 "would probably use," 3 "would certainly use." The use of the figures 1, 2 and 3 was merely a device of convenience, and the scores have been adjusted in the published results, a score of 3 being rated for example as 10 points—the maximum, denoting a 100 per cent probability of use. Four tables are published to indicate the demand for new long-haul routes, covering each existing point of origin—that is to say, from Lydd, Hurn and Southend. The "score" in the case of Lydd travellers indicated Geneva and Basle at the top of the list, followed by Bordeaux, Luxembourg, Strasbourg, Cologne and Esbjerg, Nimes, Clermont Ferrand, Maastricht and Bremen. The Hum travellers preferred Geneva, Bordeaux, Basle, Nantes, Strasbourg, Tours, Rennes, Nimes, Le Touquet, Luxembourg and Clemont Ferrand, in that order. The Southend Bristol Freigh ter travellers preferred Luxembourg, Cologne, Maastricht, Esbjerg, Bordeaux, Nimes, Bremen and Clermont Ferrand, in that order. And finally, the Southend Carvair travellers (who were presumably flying mostly to Geneva, Basle or Strasbourg) were seen to favour new points in this order: Ebsjerg, Cologne, Luxembourg, Nimes, Bordeaux, Clermont Ferrand, Bremen and Maastricht. What appears to be the most remarkable single result is the high proportion of people who scored "would probably use" or "would certainly use" against the places named. This score from a quick glance through the closely packed tables of figures, appears to be of the order of 25 per cent—and this is very much more than the 5 per cent "indication of willingness" in the surveys on which the existing long-range Carvair routes were actually launched. There are other fascinating items of information in this survey, including the demand for travel from provincial points in Britain, and also the reading habits of British United Air Ferries' clients. Without putting too much significance on the relationship between income and reading tastes (both magazines and newspapers were included), it appears that the increasing volume of people who are flying on vehicle ferries is not just being tapped from among the rich. A particularly interesting survey would have been of the type of people who use car ferry services, though market surveyors must always be wary of asking personal questions. It was probably for this reason that a "social" survey was not attempted—though the type of car that travels is a useful pointer here. No doubt British United Air Ferries have such statistics anyway in their traffic department; but, as a basis for planning new services, there is really nothing to beat a survey as thorough as this one. No conclusions are appended, indicating which new routes will be opened. To suggest that there should have been would perhaps be pressing the altruism of British United Air Ferries too far DLH's GROWING-PAINS NOW that Deutsche Lufthansa's full 1961 report is available it is possible to distinguish more clearly the circumstances which led up to the catastrophic results for that year. The story may be briefly summarized: capacity up 50 per cent to 312m c.t.m.; traffic up 40 per cent to 167m l.t.m.; unit cost down 5 per cent to 36 pence per c.t.m.; average revenue down 10 per cent to 54 pence per l.t.m.; and load factor down from 58 to 54 per cent. The inter play of these trends was such that whereas revenues rose by only 25 per cent to £37m, expenditure shot up by 40 per cent to £47m, the net loss for the year reaching a record £10m (as against an average deficit for each of the previous six years of between £2m and £3m). Included in these loss figures were heavy charges for extra depreciation (rising from approximately £lm in 1959 to £3m in 1961), mostly on the L.1049 and 1649 fleets. Perhaps this can best be described as the unfortunate cost of starting an international airline in the same year that Pan Am placed its historic order for Boeing 707s. Despite the depressing experience of North Atlantic operators m i*6l, it was not on the western routes that DLH suffered its worst setback. Indeed, the Atlantic network-which continued to account for about two-thirds of the airline's business-enjoyed higher load factors than did any other DLH sphere. In comparison, the expensive European network-which accounted for about a TZL v t ^mess-was operated only half full. Even worse mi d MI An™-'011^' f1Ch Were flown littIe more th*n one- rheBoeL^Win^fr^euaitraCtive economic romance of ST^SrT K? ?^Ru&W at the bu* rate of *™ hours tl buS .nv iVhat the American network at lca*t broke ^A:SyPT°^z;tswallowed up by substantiai deficits Until the arrival in 1964-65 of the fleet of 12 Boeing 727s, there
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