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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 2158.PDF
FLIGHT International, 12 December 1963 SWINGS AND ROUNDABOUTS... ends meet, and is thus indirectly taking some of the burden away from its own operators. The UK has now taken the opposite view and has removed the whole of the contribution from the passenger and placed it on the operator, with the threat of new charges yet to come, thus placing him at a direct disadvantage when compared with the rest of the world, or most of it. The addition of the new technical service charge, again based on the fallacious weight system, makes the picture become quite incoherent. Fig lb shows the cost of this new charge plotted against seating capacity and it is most apparent that some aircraft are very harshly treated. Two cases in point are Concorde and VC10 where the dice are heavily loaded against them before they ever get into service. Similarly the BAC One-Eleven will pay more than a Viscount, but much less than a Comet 4. The only new aircraft which does not seem to be penalized by comparison is the Trident. The most devastating impact of these new charges will be on the internal services. Fig 3 is based on an imaginary aircraft of 100,0001b all-up weight with a capacity for 75 passengers operating at the high load factor of 66.6 per cent. Since there is no such thing as a standard rate per mile within the United Kingdom, or any where else for that matter, I have used the figure of 5d per mile, which corresponds to the rate from London to Glasgow or Edin burgh. The heavy white line, although it looks like the track of an alcoholic trout, does in fact portray the percentage of the total passenger revenue taken by the landing fee when the various rebates have been applied. Is anything else needed to highlight the anomalies arising from this type of formula ? The heavy broken line shows the amount of revenue which will be extracted from the same aircraft in 1964, assuming that fares are not increased. It is glaringly obvious that short-range services, with present fares, will be financial suicide. Even on a flight of 200 miles no less than 25 per * Fig 2 Percentoge change, by categories, from 1946 rates 959 Fig 3 Percentage of gross revenue absorbed by landing fees: aircraft of 100,0001b operating at 5d per passenger-mile with capacity for 75 passengers and load factor of 66.6 per cent cent of fares paid by the passenger will be taken in landing fees. One cannot help wondering whether or not Dr Beeching was called in to help construct the rates. Few other Ministerial decisions in recent months can have been more to his advantage. Lord Douglas, retiring chairman of BEA, has condemned these charges out of hand. He says: "BEA is being penalized for making a financial success in the particularly difficult field of short haul transport . . . and well over £lm will be added to BEA's ex penditure next year of which more than half will fall on domestic services." Sir Matthew Slattery once made a famous remark which would be equally apposite. Examination of the past record of the Ministry policy on landing fees reveals such a sorry story of ponderous miscalculations that they should rub out all their sums and start again with a new sheet of paper and an open mind. Quite obviously they must increase their revenue; and the bulk of it must come from aviation, because few administrations have great ability at manipulating concessions. There are only two sources available—the carrier and the passenger. Yet, whilst the universal cry is for lower fares, and while more and more countries are imposing direct charges on the passenger— which ultimately enable their carriers to reap at least some benefit —Britain deliberately turns its back on this source of revenue and embarks upon a course which must drive up fares and also en courage other States to raise their rates. The only equitable way of recouping the outlay is to make the charges reflect the earning capacity of the aircraft, which means graduating charges according to fares. Surcharges have had the reverse effect and will continue to do so which brings one to a tax on fares paid by the passenger. This would be admittedly difficult in the case of incoming passengers but the same result can be achieved by taxing outbound tickets. It is far better that travellers should pay a direct tax than that we should all have to contribute to BOAC's and BEA's potential heavy losses occasioned by these charges while submitting all domestic aviation to political assault and battery. When the en route charges are levied in the not too distant future it will be death for internal services: they will be priced out of existence. The Minister must stop trying to face both ways at once. He maintains, in the House, that he is doing all that he can to foster British aviation. Over the cash desk he is killing it. There was once a two-headed dog called Orthrus who was clubbed to death by Heracles on Mount Abas. This occurred during one of his labours, and there might even be a moral here.
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