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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 2343.PDF
350 FLIGHT International, 3 September 1964 Athens, over which this BEA Trident I is circuiting, is not within range of this aircraft from London, and non-stop jet services will be continued with Comet 4Bs in partnership with Olympic until 1968. By then the first of 20-or-more higher-powered Tridents (not ytt given any designation) will be in service. Higher power—more than the present 11,4001b offered for the Spey 25—is required for London - East Med full-payload range, and no doubt also to meet Ministry microphone-clearance noise requirements which nowadays are a crucial design factor AIR COMMERCE . . . small profit ? Traffic in April, May and most of July has been below budget though, as Mr Henry Marking noted, it had bucked up during the last week in July and in August and the last few weeks it has in fact been better than expected, with an 11 per cent increase in passenger traffic. Results had been curiously patchy, Mr Marking Said; Spain and Scandinavia had been good, though Italy, the eastern Mediterranean and France had been poor and of course London - Paris, because of its volume, affected the whole BEA result when it did badly. "This is not the boom year we expected, Mr Milward said, and if anyone can tell me why I would be grateful." According to Mr Milward "almost all European airlines" are ex- periencing a similar shortfall. No doubt BEA's market research experts have been looking very carefully into this puzzling shortfall. Why is BEA lagging in what seems to be a period of general airline boom ? Certainly over the N. Atlantic, even during the non-low-fare periods, a booming 30-40 per cent expansion is being recorded. The reasons possibly discovered by BEA's market experts are: (1) Big increases in spending on motor cars following the 1963 reduction in purchase tax, spending which could well have dimini- shed personal holiday budgets; (2) Likewise spending on home central heating after the 1962 and 1963 winters; (3) The uncertain date of the General Election may have deterred many people from travelling abroad (the fact that traffic picked up in July and August, shortly after the announcement that the General Election would be in October, tends to add weight to this). BEA's profit and loss diagram over the years looks rather like a map of India (see illustration on page 349). "I hope we never get to Singapore," said Mr Marking (as nearly as the graph fits the atlas, Rangoon is a profit of ££m and Singapore a loss of £4m). Points from the conference:— (1) BEA, now carrying nearly 6m passengers a year, is the fifth largest passenger carrier in the Western world after the big four US domestic trunks, AA, UAL, TWA and EAL. (2) Asked to say when he foresees the retirement of Vanguards and Comets Mr Milward said that they would continue in service indefinitely. Both types of aircraft would be written down to zero by 1968 and he looked forward to "a long, happy and pros- perous" life for them. They would continue in service "as long as people will fly in them—if you really want a date I would say 1970." (3) British Eagle's very poor traffic results on domestic routes, said Mr Marking, indicated that there was very little need or demand for their services, and that every passenger was a potential BEA passenger. BEA's domestic load factor was lower this year as a result of Eagle's services. (4) The fact that the Vanguard was no competitor for the Caravelle on London - Paris had "triggered off a bit of forward thinking, with 1970 in mind, about an ultra short-haul jet," said Mr Mil- ward. This was going to be a most difficult aircraft to design and BEA would be the only operator in Europe able to use it. (5) At the October fares meeting of IATA in Athens, said Mr Mil- ward in answer to a question, the BEA position will be broadly status quo on fares. "I don't think many people will be fighting for lower fares—they can't afford it." (6) BEA had applied to the ATLB for higher domestic standby fares—reducing the rebate from 33 per cent to 20 per cent and with availability in tourist-class only, because in Mr Marking's belief: "We came to the conclusion that there had probably been some diversion of traffic from scheduled services to stand-by services." Passengers had been asked whether they would have travelled in any case, but it was difficult to say how many of the "Nos" had been given because people thought to themselves "If I say Yes they'll take these cheap fares off." (7) The last Trident 1, the 24th, will be delivered by mid-1965. Trident utilization will be 1,300-1,400hr by the end of the year; Mr Marking says that 2,5OOhr is probably as high a utilization as a short-haul operator like BEA can hope to achieve. Footnote: The date of the press conference was the 45th anniversary ofthe world's first international air service. On August 25, 1919, an Airco D.H.4A of Aircraft Transport & Travel Ltd operated the first London -Paris service.
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