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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 1971.PDF
774 FLIGHT International, 7 November 1963 A strong Swissair team visited Rolls-Royce recently to discuss, among other engines, the Spey. From left to right, Sir Denning Pearson, chief executive and deputy chairman, Rolls-Royce; Dr W. Berchtold, member of the Swissair board and president of its management committee; Professor E. Amstutz, deputy chairman, Swissair; Ing A. Baltensweiler, executive vice-president, Swissair; and Mr A. A. Lombard, director of engineering, Rolls-Royce aero engine division AIR COM MERGE . EAGLE AND THE ATL BRITISH EAGLE are unhappy not so much about the Air Transport Licensing Board's refusal of their application for increased domestic frequencies as about the tone of the language in the decision itself. Mr Harold Bamberg, the chairman, has of course appealed to the Minister against the decision; but he has also written the following letter, with copies to his staff, to the secretary of the ATLB:— "The Board of Directors of this Company, at their meeting on the 17th October, carefully considered the Decisions and Reasons dated 9th October, 1963, relating to United Kingdom trunk services and services to Dublin. "The Decisions of the Board have come as a surprise and dis appointment to this Company. It nevertheless realizes that its proper remedy is by way of appeal to the Minister of Aviation. I am, however, to ask you to place before the Air Transport Licensing Board our view that the language in which their reasons were couched was most unfair to this company. "As the Decisions and Reasons is a public document which has been and will be the subject of comment in the national and trade Press, we feel that we shall have to answer such comment publicly without delay if we are to mitigate the damage to the Company. The reasons for our dissatisfaction are as follows:— "Although paragraph 23 of the Decisions and Reasons refers to the 'enthusiasm and experience' of our management and staff and the past contribution we have made to the development of British civil aviation, the sting of the paragraph is the suggestion that the operational plan of this Company is over-ambitious and beyond our resources. In our view this is an unfair criticism, since this topic was not investigated at the hearing. Furthermore, the Board had previously been acquainted with full information as to this Company's position, its financial structure and its plans of operation for 1964, and no such criticism was then made. "The phrase 'it is unrealistic to expect other airlines to make a contribution towards solving the Company's economic and financial problems' in paragraph 20 of the Decisions and Reasons is in our view not only damaging but unjustified. It does not fairly represent the Company's attitude or the way in which this Company's case was presented to the Board. "The statement in paragraph 21 of the Decisions and Reasons that 'to the extent that some of the Britannia aircraft in question are intended for the operation of the services now applied for, the agreement could have been made subject to the grant of the relevant applications' has no foundation in any evidence before or submis sion to the Board. "The innuendo is that had this Company conducted its affairs prudently it could have persuaded the other party to the agreement to accept such a term. This innuendo is not justified. "The matter of most immediate practical concern is the suggestion in paragraph 25 of the Decisions and Reasons that the submission that the services of this Company on the routes in question might be subject to 'swamping' and 'sandwiching' by BEA was virtually groundless. I must bring to your attention the following facts, which have occurred since the hearing, but which nevertheless were for the most part public knowledge before the date of your Decisions and Reasons:— "(1) BEA's advance winter timetable printed in or about August shows no service leaving within less than half an hour of our proposed departure times on the London - Glasgow route, and within less than an hour of our proposed departure times on the London - Edinburgh and London - Belfast routes. "(2) On the 16th September, 1963, this Company officially announced at a press conference that the proposed timings for its solitary daily service on each of these routes would be as follows:— London dep 2000 2120 arr Glasgow arr 0850 0730 dep London dep 1500 1620 arr Edinburgh arr 1850 1730 dep London dep 1000 1120 arr Belfast arr 1350 1230 dep These timings would certainly have been known to BEA prior to that date because they were sanctioned by the authorities of the airports concerned. "(3) In their publication Key Nefrs No 854, dated 16th September, BEA announced a new service from London to Edinburgh departing at 1500 hours (the same time as our service) and departing from Edinburgh to London 10 minutes after our flight. These two services were to be operated with a Viscount aircraft. "(4) In Key News No 856, dated the 4th October, BEA announced: (a) an additional Vanguard service from Glasgow to London 0745 hours and the retiming of a London to Glasgow service from 2025 hours to 1940 hours; (b) services between London and Edinburgh corresponding exactly to our departure times to be operated by Vanguard instead of Viscount aircraft; and (c) an additional Vanguard service from London to Belfast at 1000 hours (the same as our time) and a departure from Belfast to London at 1220 hours (10 minutes before our departure time). "(5) On the 15th October (since the date of the Board's Decisions and Reasons) we have been informed by BEA that they are altering the Glasgow - London service, BE.5011, so as to depart at 0730 hours instead of 0745 hours. "The observation in paragraph 25 of the Decisions and Reasons that there is 'ample machinery under the Act for dealing with such a situation' is unrealistic. This Company's only remedy would be to apply to the Board for a variation of BEA's licence so as to impose a condition as to the timing of its services under Regulation 12(c). Such an application would have to be published, 21 days would have to elapse from publication to enable the licence holder to object and there would be a further lapse of time before the application could be heard. Therefore a decision favourable to this Company would not be effective pending an appeal—see section 3 (5) of the Act. This process would entail a delay of at least five to six months, by which time the winter timetable would have run its course and the summer timetable, to which different considerations might apply, would be coming into force. Even if this remedy were pursued, we should have no protection against unfair competition by BEA throughout the winter. "Your Board will also no doubt have seen BEA's announcement that it intends to increase its services on these routes in April 1964 by 30 per cent. This proposal has only been made since this Com pany applied to increase its frequency on these routes and under he present licences is quite outside the control of your Board. "Alternatively, if your Board were to exercise its power under Regulation 6, there would be no effective redress, but merely an addition of 21 days to the procedural time taken by our own application for variation. "It is difficult to understand, therefore, what your Board means by 'ample machinery'. If BEA were to over-run this Company solitary services throughout the winter season with entire success, our Directors consider that the cost to this Company would be a high price to pay for establishing in due course that BEA's propose new and additional services are 'wasteful duplication'. "In the circumstances described above, our Directors consider that it may be discourteous to your Board if they do not immediate acquaint it with their views in writing." \
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