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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 0313.PDF
194 FLIGHT International. 6 February 1964 AIR COM MERCE airline told the appeal commissioner that they believed there was room for a tremendous improvement on BEA experience in the field of pilot-hour utilization. The critics would like to hear a single answer to their points, and that the new team will take a new look at every facet of the corpor- ation's activities. When there are a host of new problems, and one has lived amongst the existing ones for fifteen years, this is a difficult thing to do; but it is the hope and belief that the new team will succeed. BEA has a big job to do, notably by increasing services to provincial cities. Already we have seen the welcome application to serve Tees-side. JOHN BRANCKER JOINS EAGLE MR JOHN BRANCKER, 53, the well-known Canadian aviation consultant, has joined the board of British Eagle International Air- lines. The position is temporary. Mr Brancker will have special responsibilities for developing the company's long-term activities and he will act as negotiator and adviser on licensing matters and in affairs connected with BEA, BOAC and other airlines. He will also undertake special tasks assigned to him by the chairman. John Brancker, the son of the late Sir Sefton Brancker, has had a long career in aviation, starting with Imperial Airways in 1929. When BOAC was formed he became regional director, India and Burma, and later rose to the position of deputy assistant director general (commercial) in 1944. On the formation of BEA he was appointed deputy managing director and general manager (traffic) in 1946. He returned to BOAC later the following year and re- mained in office there first as manager, eastern division and then general manager of international affairs until 1955 when he took up the appointment of traffic director of I ATA. In 1960 he started his own aviation consultancy in Montreal, which he still heads. WHEN IS A ROUTE RIPE? AT what point in the development of a route does competition stimulate growth and improve service without economic harm to the incumbent airline? This old familiar question does not have a precise answer, but many and varied are the interesting answers that have been put forward. Not previously recorded in these pages are some of our notes on the recent British Eagle appeal against the ATLB's refusal to grant the airline what it considered to be a workable domestic trunk net- work. Eagle called in Mr Albert Gotch, an American air transport consultant since 1940—a witness with no previous experience of the UK scene but one who has made a long study of the United States industry. There the presumption is competition, which is positively encouraged and, of course, well documented. Mr Gotch investigated a number of US city pairs 150-500 miles apart generating at least 50,000 passengers in 1963. Denning a competitor as an airline which carries at least 10 per cent of the traffic, Mr Gotch said that from 1955 to 1962 the average traffic on the routes with a monopoly carrier rose only 31 per cent, whereas where competition existed traffic rose 50 per cent. Further conclusions based on average US experience showed that two- carrier competition stimulated traffic by 15 to 20 per cent, and that during the first full year of operation the new carrier accounted for about a third of the total market traffic. Other conclusions were that "traffic diversion from the existing carriers in the year after the introduction of competitive service is about 13 per cent of the traffic in the previous year. To offset this, the normal growth during the subsequent years is 15 per cent." On the economic results of competition, Mr Gotch said: "The provisions of unrestricted competition by a second carrier in a market results, on average, in substantial traffic stimulation. Diversion from the existing carrier is not substantial, and can be offset within a reasonable time by normal traffic growth On balance, including the beneficial side-effects of competition such as tariff experiments, equipment rivalry, passenger service courtesy, advertising and public interest, these considerations appear to out- weigh the transitional disadvantage to the existing monopoly carrier." STRETCHING THE CONCORD "A STOP on all technical information about progress of the Anglo- French Concord supersonic airliner and BOACs apparent haste to order the proposed American rival is being construed as doubt about the development of the Concord"—Daily Telegraph, January 25. THESE doubts took the form of headlines like "£100 MILLION UP GOES COST OF CONCORD" and others which led the Financial Times to comment: "Nothing is more likely to lose Concord orders than expressions of doubt by any of the parties in the country building it." But it was the Daily Telegraph, in the quotation above, that hit the nail on the head. A policy of secrecy is guaranteed to make the Press put the worst possible construction on gossip and rumours, especially when £70m of public money is involved. The only official statement, too late to quench the fires, was by the Minister of Aviation in the House of Commons on January 29. Mr Amery told Sir Arthur Harvey: "We are considering proposals to increase the power of the Olympus 593 engine and to make cer- tain changes to the wing design of the aircraft in order to achieve better range and payload." This represents a major change of policy. As recently as Decem- ber Flight International, December 19, page 989) Dr Russell, deputy technical director of the Concord programme, said in answer to a question: "I see no developments in sight to extend range beyond London - Paris or London - New York." In the last two months, competition from the proposed American SST—specified stage length for which is at least 4,000 statute miles —has caused BAC and Sud to explore new and more fundamental ways of increasing range. The Concord was a compromise be- tween the transatlantic, six-Olympus Bristol 198 and the medium- range Sud Super Caravelle. It was to be built in two versions— long-range (262,3501b) and medium-range (220,5001b), both dimen- sionally identical but differing in the composition of fuel load and payload. It became apparent soon after the Concord was launched that the French were having second thoughts about the economics of the medium-range version (Flight International, April 25, page 593). and in recent months it has been quietly dropped in favour of a standard long-haul aeroplane. It appears that even this long-haul aeroplane, presumably as a result of the original compromise, is not long-haul enough. Every available cubic inch of fuel space has already been spoken for and there are evidently no prospects (otherwise they would have been announced) for considerable reductions in the specific fuel con- sumption of the Olympus 593 or in the Concord's basic weight. The additional weight and drag of external fuel tanks would eat further into the already small (16,0001b) London-New York pay- load. Thus the reported request by BAC/Sud to Bristol Siddeley for 15-25 per cent more engine power suggests that a new and much
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