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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 0627.PDF
FLIGHT International, 25 April 1963 601 Qj Straight and Level I F you have a query about civil aviation in Austria you should write, I dis covered the other day, to the Bundes- ministerium fur Verkehr und Elektrizitat- swirtschaft. Which, being interpreted, means Federal Ministry of Communications and Electric Power Development. 1 do not know whether an Austrian with a query about British electricity writes to the Ministry of Aviation. I'm sure that the Ministry's helpful information office handles all sorts of curious inquiries. Anyway, intrigued, I made a little collec tion of the departments you should write to in other countries about civil aviation:— Niger: Ministry of Public Works, Mines and Town Planning. Switzerland: Federal Air Offices of the Department of Posts and Railways. Finland: Ministry for Communications and Public Works. Madagascar: Ministry of Public Works, Transport, Construction, Posts and Tele communications. Egypt: Ministry of War, Civil Aviation Department. • The eminent man who was always known to his company as "Psn" is now known as Sir Denning Pearson, the execu tive master of Rolls-Royce. He must not be confused with Lord Denning, The Master of the Rolls. • I see that Pratt & Whitney Aircraft are claiming that the TF33-7 is "the free world's most powerful turbofan engine." In view of the fact that the Rolls-Royce Conway Mk 550, now in production for the Super VC10, has a guaranteed minimum rating of 21,8251b, I can only conclude that Pratt & Whitney do not consider Derby to be in the free world. Or else they do not consider that the Conway qualifies as a turbofan. Which perhaps lends support to what I was saying the other week. If Rolls-Royce called their All right, all right—so while you were driving along the road between Johannesburg and Potchefstroom you saw a Viking bolted to the roof of a petrol station turbofans turbofans their rivals would not be able to make claims which cannot be substantiated. • "TWA is not managed by supermen, but by ordinary stumbling mortals. If they can initiate [a] recovery, why not BO AC?" This question is put by The Economist, in reporting that TWA cut their 1961 loss of £10m to £3Jm in 1962, while BO AC lost £14m, the same as in the previous year. The implication is that BOAC are ineffi cient. This is in fact the popular image of BOAC—a fat, flabby, overstaffed airline which has poured £64m of taxpayers" money down the drain. With respect to The Economist, and to all those who quite rightly needle our corpor ations into improving their efficiency, I think the time has come for somebody to say that BOAC is not—repeat—not inefficient. R. Bacon has not been uncritical of Are You All Right?—No 19 BOAC, and 1 stick to my opinion that the corporation's traffic-forecasting, handling of associated companies, fares policies and equipment planning have left much to be desired. But one achievement, which has never received the praise it deserves, towers above all else. This is their break-even load factor, taking into account all costs, now probably less than 52 per cent. An airline with this sort of break-even load factor cannot, I suggest, be represented as inefficient. I am not too sure about the fairness of a comparison with TWA, three-quarters of whose business is US domestic. But compared with Pan American, BOAC now have a higher aircraft utilization, a com parable total cost level, a lower cost per hour, and a higher output of flying hours per emploj ee. BOAC are not grossly inefficient, or even mildly inefficient. They are now, after a real struggle, efficient by any standard except that of US domestic airlines, which are without any doubt the most efficient in the world. BOAC's trouble is gross over-capacity, brought about partly by over-optimistic traffic-forecasting, and also partly by their obligation to support the British aircraft industry. But they have only to push their load factor up two or three points to make a profit. • Mr Lenny Bruce, the "sick" American comedian refused admission to these shores because he allegedly says rude words, was flown back home by BOAC. Now BOAC have themselves been known to burst out with an expletive or two. So how about one of those BOAC advert isements, featuring a close-up photograph of Mr Bruce looking "sick" in a 707, with the caption: "BOAC TAKES •— GOOD CARE OF YOU." ROGER BACON
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