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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 0657.PDF
FLIGHT International, 2 May 1963 629 AIR COM M ERCE . . . THE NO BRITISH thinking on air transport still runs in terms of independents versus corporations, of division rather than unity. The airline industry has hardly begun to think of British air transport as a national entity rather than of one segment of it in conflict with the other. Ministerial, legislative and regulatory attitudes are still essentially protectionist rather than expansionist, as instanced by such familiar phrases as "material diversion" and "wasteful duplication" and the dreary list of "objectors" in ATLB licensing notices. But the real conflict is no longer between private enterprise and State air transport so much as between the "activists" and the "passivists," as Professor Cherington has defined them. The former believe that the slow rate of growth of US domestic air transport is due to poor marketing and insufficient ingenuity in pricing attractively the basic airline product. The passivists hold that apart from the 3 per cent annual growth of the economy the market is virtually saturated. These two schools of thought are by no means confined to America. The passivist element seems to predominate on this side of the Atlantic, with a depressingly frequent desire to put up the fares—one issue at least on which BEA and the independents are agreed. As air transport coalesces into fewer and larger units there is a real danger that sheer gargantuan, monolithic size will blunt the keen-edged activist approach to market development and turn it into a passivist conviction that putting up fares is the only course to follow, allied to flooding the markets with excess jet capacity by over-scheduling. Air transport may be in danger of breeding a race of supersonic dynosaurs whose market-development brain is too small to make the body react to public demand. Mr Harold Bamberg of Eagle has made the point that competition results in a much more versatile approach to the market. It is just this activist approach that air transport needs so badly today. Consider some of the ideas produced in the competitive forcing- house of US domestic air transport: The Universal Air Travel Plan BELGIUM Sobelair Subsidiary of Sabena operating a domestic network in the Congo with Cessnas and until April 1962 charter flights from Belgium to the Congo, using DC-6s and DC-6Bs leased from Sabena. State airline holding, 100 per cent. Fleet, three Cessna 310. FINLAND Kar-Air Operates domestic services and international routes, including Helsinki - Gothenburg- Vienna and Helsinki - Gothenburg - Luxembourg- Malaga services, and also to Tenerife via Gothenburg and Luxembourg. Charter and IT nights also undertaken. Finnair is purchasing a majority holding in Kar-Air. Fleet, one DC-6B, two Convair 440, four DC-3. one Lodestar. GREAT BRITAIN Cambrian Operation of Irish Sea routes formerly flown by BEA, "•hich has a one-third holding acquired in 1958. Ten-year operating agreement signed with BEA in 1956. Fleet, four Viscount 701, eight DC-3. Tradair Operation of four round-trip flights daily on the corridor routes from Berlin to Hamburg, Hanover and Frankfurt for BEA for three months beginning July 1, 1962. Two Viscounts used, one of which has since been sold to Starways. Fleet, one Viscount 707, two Viking. FRANCE Aimautic Subsidiary of Air France operating charter and IT flights. Paris-Pau scheduled service formerly operated. Fleet, two Boeing 307, two DC-6C, six Viking, one DC-2. Air Inter Operates French domestic services. French Railways also has a 24.95 per cent holding; UAT and TAI each have a 7.27 per cent holding. Equipment has also been leased from Air France, TAI, UAT an ! Airnautic. State airline holding, 24.95 per cent. Fleet, seven Viscount 708, two Nord 260, two Viking. TAi Round-the-world service with Air France, and also African routes. Formed Madair (now Air Madagascar) with Air France and •he original Air Madagascar. One DC-7C leased to Air Madagascar. H N-IATAs of 1936, pioneered by American Airlines; the introduction of sleeper service two years before, also by American; TWA's intro duction of the first all-air US transcontinental passenger service in 1929 and of pressurization and four engines with the Boeing 307 Stratoliner hi 1938; introduction of domestic coach services by Capital in 1948 and of the family-fare plan by American in the same year. Not so well known was United's introduction in April 1940 of lower fares for flights in its by-then-uncompetitive Boeing 247Ds between San Francisco and Los Angeles under the slogan "cheaper than you can drive your automobile," with regular tariffs charged for DC-3 flights on the same route—one of the earliest instances of a differential fare for an older and slower type of equipment. The Boeing 247 fare was approximately 3.67 cents per mile, compared with a DC-3 rate of 5.8 cents per mile over the same route. But there still seem to be too few new ideas for successfully cheapening air transport today—with the notable exceptions of Eastern's Air Shuttle and Continental's experimental business-class services. Has Britain contributed as much as it might have done ? Apart from Silver City's pioneering of vehicle ferry routes, Skyway's Coach Air services and BEA's promotional fares, several other promising British ideas for market development, in particular Eagle's VLF proposals of four years ago that led directly to the fainthearted Skycoach scheme, have not, for various reasons, been taken up. Undoubtedly a great deal of frustration has resulted from Britain's failure to appreciate how other countries—particularly France, Australia and Canada—have tackled the problem of a satisfactory relationship between independent and State airlines and to draw on the best of these ideas for our own use—itself part of a larger failure to work out a coherent British civil aviation policy. The table below summarizes how other European countries have tackled this problem and also serves to emphasize the limited degree of co-operation between British independents and the corporations, particularly in comparison with France and the Scandinavian countries. M. J. H. TAI is in process of merging with UAT. Fleet, three DC-8, two DC-7C, four DC-6B, two DC-4. one DC-3. UAT Participation with Air France in Air Afrique, in which UAT, like Air France, has a 17 per cent holding and to which it leases equip ment. UAT/TAI services to French Equatorial and West Africa pooled with Air France. Fleet, three DC-8, three DC-6A, seven DC-6B. four DC-4, two Heron. ITALY Elivie Helicopter subsidiary of Alitalia operating from Naples to Capri and Ischia and seasonally between Turin, Milan and Malpensa, with other routes planned. Fleet, four Agusta-Bell 47J, two Agusta-Bell 102. Itavia Operates Italian domestic routes with commercial assistance from Alitalia. One Herald 200 on order. Fleet, three DC-3, two Heron, one Dove, one Herald. SAM Operates IT and charter flights. Took over Venice-Trieste route from Alitalia in December 1961, and later Alitalia's Rome - Reggio Calabria-Palermo service. State airline holding, 90 per cent. Fleet, six DC-6B, two C-46F, four DC-3. SCANDINAVIA Scanair Operates IT and charter flights using three DC-7Cs leased from SAS. State holding, 45 per cent. Fleet, three DC-7C. Fred Olsen Some freight services for SAS. Fleet, three C-46R. Wideroe's Operates a network of routes ir. northern Norway for SAS as well as undertaking charter, air ambulance and air survey work. Fleet, four Otter, four Norseman, one DC-3 and other types; two Nord 262 on option. Linjeflyg Operates scheduled passenger and newspaper delivery services in Sweden. Jointly owned by SAS and Swedish press interests. Charter and ambulance work also undertaken. State airline holding, 50 per cent. Fleet, eight Convair 340/440, five DC-3. Concluded at foot of col 2. page 632 SOME INDEPENDENT/NATIONAL-AIRLINE PARTNERSHIPS
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