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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 1289.PDF
"LIGHT International, 25 July 1963 REIGHT AND HEATHROW CARLY two-and-a-half years ago the Ministry of Aviation set ip a working party with representatives of the airlines, Customs md Excise, Board of Trade, and shipping and forwarding agents, 0 examine the cargo handling arrangements at United Kingdom lirports up to 1970. The party has now published its report.* In the event, London Heathrow is the only United Kingdom drport where freight handling facilities are likely to be inadequate, md the Working Party's report deals almost exclusively with the leathrow problem. In 1957, the Millbourn Committee recom- nended that 300,000 sq ft of freight shed accommodation in Heathrow's central area would be adequate to handle the 300,000 ons of freight that it estimated would pass through the airport in 970. Based on freight traffic growth up to 1960, the Working 'arty made a fresh estimate of the traffic, and concluded that 550,000 tons per annum will pass through Heathrow by 1970. This jstimate was based on a 21 per cent growth rate from 1960-65 ind a 20 per cent rate from 1965-70. On the amount of space needed for freight the report also dis agrees with the Millbourn Committee's overall assumption that 1 sq ft of floor space per ton per year is adequate. Except for short- haul export freight, the report says, all other freight needs more than 1 sq ft, with the result that the space required at Heathrow is now sstimated as 590,000 sq ft. The difficulty is that for technical reasons the Central Area site chosen by the Millbourn Committee js incapable of being extended to accommodate the larger building. Various solutions to the problem were examined by the Working Party, which conclude4 that freight handling must be concentrated in one area to minimize cost and complication in dealing with trans-shipments. The Party also agreed that they would only consider splitting the freight handling areas if all the alternatives could be proved completely uneconomic. Three possible sites were examined. The old North Terminal apron adjacent to the Bath Road was rejected on the grounds that it was too narrow to give adequate manoeuvring space for aircraft and vehicles at the front and back of the freight shed, and only big enough for about 400,000 sq ft of warehouse space. On the other hand, the report says, the*site could be developed more cheaply and quickly than any other. • CAP 192, "Report of the Air Freight Working Party," HMSO, London S.E.I, 2s 3d. 115 Mr Basil Sutton, appointed Director of Civil Aviation, East Africa. He succeeds Mr J. J. Furniss, who takes up a new civil aviation appointment in Nigeria. Mr Sutton has since 1948 held various posts with the East African Directorate of Civil Aviation The second site considered, and the one which the Party eventu ally chose to recommend, is in the south-west corner of the airfield. Here there is enough land for the ideal layout, but it lies five miles from the Central Area via the perimeter road. Even by 1970, some 30 per cent of all freight passing through Heathrow will be in the holds of passenger aircraft, therefore it is essential for the freight handling area to be well connected with the passenger-handling Central Area. Various tunnel schemes for linking the two areas were studied by the Party, including: a three-lane tunnel costing £5m and needing over five years to develop; a two-lane tunnel costing £3Jm and needing four-and-a-half years to develop; a two- lane conveyor belt costing £lfm and needing four-and-a-half years to develop. The Working Party has recommended the two-lane road vehicle tunnel. In all cases the cost of developing the site (excluding buildings) would be about £lfm. Finally, the Working Party considered an entirely new site on the north of the Bath Road. The road would pass underneath the connecting taxyway. The total cost of this scheme was estimated as £2Jm taking four-and- a-half years to develop. This scheme, particularly attractive from the point of view of cost, was not recommended because of the anticipated difficulties with local authorities on the questions of noise and possible spoiling of the area's amenities. In the foreword to the report, the Minister of Aviation says that the Government have accepted the Working Party's recommenda tions in principle, subject to confirmation of the economics of the scheme. THE TROOPING HEARING NOW it was the turn of the corporations. The Air Transport Licensing Board had many times heard BOAC or BEA objecting to independent applications to break the cor porations' monopoly of scheduled services. Now it was their turn to hear independents—British United, Caledonian and Cunard Eagle—objecting to BOAC and BEA applications to break the independents' monopoly of trooping. And that was not the only unusual feature of this extraordinary hearing. To begin with, it was a most unusual application, so unortho dox and vague on such fundamental matters as fares and evidence of need for the service that Cunard Eagle wondered whether the Board had any jurisdiction in respect of it at all. It was certainly a U rather muddling. Normally the Board fixes domestic fares and "e Minister fixes international fares; yet when the corporations So to the Minister and offer to carry troops on their scheduled services at rebated international fares, he tells them to get a recom mendation from the Board—a Board which in any case does not ^ow, and which is not normally required to know, anything about trooping. Mr Henry Marking, for BEA, explained that his corporation *aoted a recommendation enabling it to go to the Service apartments and to negotiate the carriage of troops (by troops ** meant servicemen and their families travelling at Government Pense) at rebated fares on scheduled services to Malta, Cyprus J*01 Germany. Main object of the exercise, he said, was to increase As revenues without increasing costs. Normally, he commented, * matter of determining international fares was one for the ^mister; but hi this case BEA had been told by the Minister to meir proposal before the Air Transport Licensing Board in order that the independent airlines, who are the traditional long- term contract troop carriers, should have an opportunity to voice their objections. The corporations had never been asked by the Service depart ments to tender for whole-charter trooping; and by gentlemen's agreement dating back to the days of Mr Lennox Boyd they had not kept aircraft specially for charter. So far as BEA were con cerned, this agreement was still respected, and Mr Marking was glad to say that BEA did not have aircraft surplus to the require ments of scheduled services. BEA's applications were for an exten sion of the "ad hoc" trooping work which was from time to time undertaken by the corporations. All that BEA were asking was for the right to negotiate with the appropriate Government depart ments. BEA wanted to guard against depriving normal passengers of seats and against diluting revenue already received from Service departments who already travelled at full fare on BEA services. The aim, he said, was to carry troops in groups. Pressed by the chairman of the Board, Mr Jack, to define a group, Mr Marking freely admitted that BEA were in some difficulty here "because we have never sat round the table with Service departments to discuss trooping." Speaking without authority, he thought that a group might comprise not less than five persons. There would have to be an upper limit and a lower limit and the rebate would vary accord ing to the size of group, the route, the month, the day and perhaps even the time of day. It was not, he submitted, for the Board to define the terms of these arrangements but to permit BEA to negotiate them. A member of the Board, Sir Friston How, thought that there
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