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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 0180.PDF
FLIGHT International, 121 23 January 1964 One of the latest airlines to nominate Luton Airport as a diversion airport for London Heathrow is BEA, where they are handled by Lutair Handling Services, an Autair subsidiary. The first diversions were on Boxing Day when thick fog closed Heathrow. Lutair are now also officially appointed agents for KLM, Aer Lingus, Lufthansa and BKS in addition to the many independents now using Luton BOAC AND THE AMERICAN SST AS if the Treasury were not embarrassed enough over the Con- corde, with a parliamentary committee report (page 119) having virtually indicted them of negligence, BOAC are now pressing for approval to pay the FAA a $600,000 deposit on six of the American pseudosonic airliners. The Treasury has no technical aeronautical expertise, and relies on Ministry of Aviation experts—men like Mr Haviland—for advice on the technical feasibility and commercial desirability of the projects which they, the custodians of the public purse, are called upon to finance. This was clearly and concisely established by the 1959 parliamentary select committee report. Now the Treasury, for what must seem to them like the millionth time, sees its investment not only threatened by a later, more advanced American competitor, but finds itself indirectly sponsoring the competing product by being forced to permit BOAC orders for it. Who is going to buy the Concorde, a panic-stricken Treasury may now well ask, if even BOAC is booking an order for its Amer- ican rival? To soothe the Treasury's nerves, the following answers immed- iately come to mind: One, nothing has changed the industrial or political desirability of the Anglo-French project; two, other air- lines, e.g., PAA, TWA and Qantas, are backing themselves both Pan American are still by far and away the world's largest carriers of international air freight with KLM second and BOAC, having again drawn ahead of Air France, third. This graph is based on the ICAO 1962 Traffic Digest just published. See "The Cargo Carriers" PAN AMERICAN 2OOr 8_JSO o = 100 (268 m in 1962) jnternarionol cargo carriers I9S7 1958 I9S9 I960 1961 1962 ways; three, the Concorde will be first by two years, and this could be more with the odds in favour of the technically more prudent Concorde; four, the Concorde's commercial prospects are greater than were those of the highly underated Caravelle ten years ago. BOAC's " order " for the American SST would secure delivery position No 8. Can Mr Amery, Minister of Aviation, refuse to allow it? He can do so only by overruling BOAC's commercial judgment. Qantas Want Ten SSTs Qantas are negotiating for four Concorde delivery positions and six FAA SST positions. Announcing this on January 17, Mr C. O. Turner, chief executive, said he was "looking for an improvement" in the non-refundable deposit terms quoted by BAC and Sud. The FAA will refund deposits (with interest) up to November 1,1965. THE CARGO CARRIERS AN article in these pages last week indicated that BOAC will have to achieve an annual average 35 per cent growth of its freight business during the sixties if it is to fill the cargo capacity it has on order. Detailed traffic figures just published for ICAO for all the world's airlines, Digest of Statistics No 101, show that BOAC's rate of growth continues to be consistently on the up and up, the corporation have overtaken Air France once again to become the world's third biggest carrier of international air freight. First, quite unchallenged, is Pan American, and second KLM. But the average annual rate of increase has only been 14 per cent since 1958 compared with the 35 per cent challenge that lies ahead. Provisional figures for the year 1963 indicate that BOAC's North Atlantic freight grew 21 per cent during the year. Britain's national carrier has been uplifting just under 370 tons of freight each month westbound out of the UK for the USA and Canada. BOAC's main foreign rival, Pan American, has been uplifting just over 500 tons a month to the USA alone, according to a PAA official last week. TWA, Seaboard and KLM are unable to supply figures but at a rough estimate BOAC's foreign competitors are doing twice the amount of transatlantic freight business in the UK that BOAC are doing. The business is obviously there, and since October, when the chartered Seaboard CL-44 was introduced, BOAC's uplift has been boosted substantially. With this aircraft, and possibly more, and also with the Miami fare cuts, BOAC are hoping for very big increases—70 per cent in 1964-65 compared with the previous year. This will, because of the cuts, only bring in 12 per cent more revenue, but it is the right way to go about the growth that is necessary. Blackbushe Independent Airport General aviation operations at Blackbushe Airport in Hampshire continue to expand after the complete inactivity that followed the Ministry of Aviation's with- drawal in 1960. Meanwhile, full planning authority has been won for the airport to be once again licensed for public transport operations, and the management report that a number of indepen- dent airlines have applied for hangar space. A disagreement with local authorities over the question of common rights of access has been resolved in the airport's favour. The work of improving the facilities has now begun.
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