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Aviation History
1966
1966 - 0009.PDF
.motional, l966 AIR TRANSPORT Three Operators for London-Glasgow _.HE need for competitive domestic services was one of the T points stressed by the commissioner, Sir Harold Kent, in recommending the acceptance of part of the appeal by British Fade against the ATLB's decision to revoke its domestic trunk licences. As forecast (Sensor in the issue of December 23 and page 1101 of the issue of December 30) he proposed that , Eagle should retain its London Heathrow-Glasgow licence but i lose those for Heathrow-Belfast and Heathrow-Edinburgh. He recommended that British United's licences for services from London Gatwick to Glasgow, Belfast and Edinburgh (granted by the board when Eagle's licences were revoked) should be retained. Last week the Ministry of Aviation announced decisions which were in line with these recommendations and which were among the last to be made by Mr Roy Jenkins as Minister of Aviation. From January 4, when BUA starts domestic operations with BAC One-Elevens, there will be three operators on the London (Heathrow/Gatwick)-Glasgow route and two on the routes to Edinburgh and Belfast. In presenting his recommendations the commissioner said that he considered "that British Eagle have shown that the competition of their services with those of BEA produced an improvement in the latter's services which was not maintained after British Eagle's withdrawal. The evidence on this was convincing and was not contradicted by any evidence pro- duced by BEA. ... I accept that this competition benefits British civil aviation." He also said that although the evidence of BEA's "sand- wiching" and "swamping" of Eagle's competing services had been dismissed by the ATLB as irrelevant to the main issues, he regarded these tactics as "going beyond legitimate com- petition as between the public corporation with unlimited frequencies and an independent airline granted a licence by a statutory board to provide a limited alternative service. My reaction is that such tactics ought not, in common fairness and justice, to succeed in their objective, unless there are good grounds of public interest for terminating British Eagle's services." The commissioner did not think that the frequencies (seven a week) on the Belfast route and the traffic on the Edinburgh route offered hopeful prospects of viability. (The Glasgow route, on the other hand, is one of the busiest in Europe and it is expected that more than 600,000 passengers will have been carried during the year ending in March.) Of BUA's operations from Gatwick he said that "they are, in my opinion, to be regarded as separate services to a large extent because they will cater for a populous area not very accessible to Heathrow." In his decision the Minister said that Eagle's licence for Heathrow-Glasgow services would lapse if a minimum monthly frequency of 36 flights were not maintained. Commenting on the decision, Mr Harold Bamberg, chairman of British Eagle, said that he hoped that, "in the fullness of time, we shall be allowed more frequencies on the route in accordance with the application which has been lodged with the ATLB and which has been pending for some months." Eagle will withdraw from the Belfast service after tomorrow, January 7. British United said that the decision was "a confirmation of our view that Gatwick and Heathrow to some extent cater for different population areas" and commented that the decision to allow Eagle to continue on the Glasgow route was "surpris- ing in view of the Minister's previous statement about limiting frequencies on this route." The first BAC One-Eleven 401 for American Airlines at Newark Airport, NJ, where it arrived just before Christmas. Services will start next month over routes to Toronto and within New York State. American's One-Elevens will, rt|/s expected, be operated with a single-class 69-seat layout
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