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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 2833.PDF
820 FLIGHT International, 12 November /964 AIR COMMERCE . . . BRITISH MIDLAND TAKE OVER MERCURY BRITISH MIDLAND AIRWAYS (formerly Derby Airways) is to take over with immediate effect the operations and routes of Mercury Airlines which, as related in last week's issue, had decided to cease operations at the end of October. Lord Calthorpe, who formed Mercury in 1960, said: "We have co-operated with British Midland in the past and we are very pleased that it is they who will continue the services we have inaugurated." Before the announcement British Midland had laid before the ATLB its plans to take over the following Mercury routes: Leeds/ Bradford and/or Manchester - Sandown (Isle of Wight); Liverpool and/or Manchester - Exeter; Liverpool and/or Manchester - Sandown; Leeds/Bradford and/or Manchester - Exeter; and Newcastle, Leeds/Bradford and Manchester - Cork. Mercury's route between Manchester, Newcastle, Tees-side Airport (Middleton St George) and Glasgow is the subject of applications both by Dan-Air and by British United (CI) Airways who propose a range of types from the One-Eleven to the Heron—there is no mention, incidentally, of any possible jet surcharge. BUA(CI) is also applying for Mercury's ex-Liverpool and/or Manchester - Exeter route at a lower single fare than British Midland, £5 15s instead of £7 with student and ITX one-way fares of £5 3s. BUA(CI) are also con- testing British Midland's application for Mercury's Leeds/Bradford - Exeter route, with a one-way fare of £6 instead of £7 and again with student and ITX fares. British Westpoint has also applied for DC-3 services between Exeter and Sandown, Liverpool, Leeds/ Bradford and Newcastle with optional stops at Birmingham and Manchester—a slightly different routeing to that followed by Mercury. A NEW SERVICE TO TEES-SIDE THE first scheduled service from the new Middleton St George airport—now known as Tees-side Airport—was inaugurated on November 2 by a BKS Elizabethan carrying a party of invited guests to London Heathrow Airport. BKS has scheduled twice- daily flights in each direction from Mondays to Fridays during the winter period with a flying time of 85min. Departure times from Tees-side are at 0815 and 1730, and from London at 1020 and 1945, with a return fare of £10 12s. Timings and frequency of the new service have been determined by the results of a market survey carried out in Tees-side earlier this year by the BKS sales organiza- tion. The businessman will now be able to enjoy a full working day in London or Tees-side and return home the same evening. Attention has also been given to the Tees-side interline passenger who, catching the morning BKS flight, can be in Gothenburg at 135Ohr or New York at 135Ohr on the same day. A joint BOAC-BKS timetable has been produced as a pocket edition showing BKS flights from Leeds/Bradford, Newcastle and Tees-side to London matched against convenient BOAC connec- tions to North America and the Caribbean, while the BKS winter timetable contains details of the corporation's transatlantic services. BOAC's representatives in Newcastle and Leeds/Bradford are working closely with BKS and courses in BOAC sales, reservations and ticketing methods are being held for BKS staff. ONE-ELEVENS FOR PAL AN important breakthrough for the BAC One-Eleven in the Far East comes with the announcement of an order for two, with an option on a third, from Philippine Air Lines. Sixty-seven One- Elevens are now on order, plus 15 on option. PAL will thus become the first Asian carrier to operate One-Elevens, and these will be put on to the airline's domestic trunk routes when deliveries begin next year. Mr Benigno P. Toda Jr, chairman of PAL's board, says that the One-Elevens will drastically cut flying times on domestic trunk routes; the decision to purchase the aircraft was made because it suited PAL's domestic trunk routes both opera- tionally and economically. One-Elevens will be operated from Manila to Cebu, Davao and Bacolod carrying up to 74 passengers, replacing Viscounts. PAL presently has four 700-series Viscounts and has operated the type since 1957, achieving remarkably high levels of utilization. PAL's choice of the One-Eleven is not only a blow to the Douglas DC-9 (the airline has been a DC-8 operator for two years now) but also to the Fokker F.28 Fellowship; PAL has placed several repeat orders for Friendships since its first in 1959 and now has eight in service of 13 on order—one of the largest airline fleets of the Dutch turboprop. PAL serves some 75 points on its domestic routes on which it maintains an unusual four-class fare structure: Viscounts and Friendships operate de luxe and night tourist services while DC-3s fly first-class and economy flights, Otters operating rural service schedules. • BOAC ANSWERS ON SOUTH AMERICA COMPARISONS of BOAC's efforts in South America with those of British United have been the subject of these comments by a BOAC spokesman:— "It has been said of BOAC's operations in South America that we employed too many staff, had 'lush' offices and far too high overheads. The BOAC staff employed along this route, which covers stations at Lisbon, Madrid and Dakar, numbered only 216. Of these a small number were BOAC contract staff. "It has been thought that the scale of our operation in South America was altogether too lavish. Although prestige probably counts for more in South America than anywhere else on Earth, the BOAC set-up was by no means as costly to us as our offices may have suggested. In Santiago, for instance, we had a fine shop in an excellent position, but the rent and decor was paid by our agents and was not recharged. The Rio office—a good one in a grand position—had a rock bottom rent since we had kept it from the days of earlier operations in South America. "We spent money on the office in Buenos Aires but we had taken the place originally as an investment rather than as a base of a lavish operation. In Santiago there was a fine rest house but this was run on a profit-making basis by putting up staff and hiring it out on occasions to third parties. This property and the land on which it stands has appreciated several times over in the last 15 years. "BOAC obviously investigated the possibility of subcontracting maintenance work along the route to other organizations but having decided that we wanted to maintain the highest possible standard of maintenance, we came to the conclusion that we would have to do it ourselves to achieve those standards." International Aeradio have signed a contract with Saudi Arabian Airlines and the Saudi Arabian Department of Civil Aviation to operate a radio-teletype com- munications system linking the country's major airports end civil aviation offices. At the signing, from left to right, were Mr A. B. Yamani, legal adviser to SAA; Mr Kamal Sindi, Super- visor General in the Saudi Arabian Department of Civil Aviation; Sheikh Ahmed Jamjoon, chairman, SAA; Mr R. A. VVi'- loughby, deputy commercial manager, International Aeradio; and Mr L 6. Greensted, manage- ment adviser, SAA
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