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Aviation History
1966
1966 - 1138.PDF
, ^auonat, 21 April 1966 A Cool Look at British Air Transport BY J. R. KARRAN IT s practically a truism that if you want to know what willbe happening in the UK tomorrow you take a look at theUnited States today. This goes whether your interests lie in bingo, paperbacks, glossy magazines with a high content of female surface anatomy, or just air transport. I have the impression that the impact of turbines and more particularly jets (should one say turbofans?) on the US civil aviation scene just have not been properly appreciated on this side of the Atlantic. In a few years the jets have not only turned air transport into a commercially viable business but have caused an air population explosion. Air transport is now their number one form of commercial passenger transport. I make no apology for spelling out the fact that the American certificated air carriers at present have a bigger share of the passenger-transport market (except commuter traffic) than the trains, buses and ships put together. If by chance anyone thinks that this has no message for the UK because of the relative sizes of the two countries, let me add that the majority of passengers are "short haul" and that the most-travelled distance is in the 150-250-miles bracket. And don't forget that we form part of Europe. The turbine looks like having a similar impact on American business (executive) aviation, judging from the order books. There is a quaint belief in this country that the optimum transport system will automatically emerge without any effec- tive lead by the administration. We were the only major | country to have an unplanned railway system (a form of control was set up mid-century but was wholly ineffective). Millions are now being spent in the retrospective rationalisa- tion of our railway network. Even the USA ended up with a fairly efficient form of Federal control which, incidentally, set the American pattern for comprehensive statistical data on their transport. Much of the appalling safety record of British railways in the earlier days was due to its unplanned expan- I sion. History repeated itself in our aviation. | Sizing-up the Future If one looks at the two countries which have the best air transport systems, the United States and Australia, you find that a special sizeable Government agency in the one case, and a large part of the department which looks after civil aviation generally in the other, have been determining the future public transport requirements and then taking effective steps to meet them. If necessary an initial subsidy is given to operators and for ground services. Not only this, but they have «en telling the public what they are going to do and why. m one of these countries socialism remains an unpopularawore. judging from all the published information available on the LiZ of ±e Ministry of Aviation, the Air Transport rasing Board and the two airline corporations, there does appear to be any agency doing an equivalent job in the of C'-?'Ae(?uivalent t0 the CAB or the Australian Department aonea t lation- Even if there were such an agency nobody of thf • « • comPiling (and certainly not publishing) much Civil A.? cal data which such an agency would need. The biiity 'tn'fl?01* Act can ^ construcd as giving such a responsi- almost m • Ster> but h is in such broad terms as t0 berowin f'nglcss- Additionally the Act appears to make no The L^ direCt Subsidy to operators. ^Porti 1 We have two nationalised airlines (the twoJess their appendages) and related consultative 661 machinery does not obviate the need for basic planning by the Government itself. This is especially the case when the two corporations are expected to be financially self-supporting. In the present situation BEA can hardly be criticised for con- centrating on the more lucrative holiday routes and being apparently very cool towards opening up new essentially busi- ness routes—even though such a policy subtracts rather than adds to the economy of the country as a whole. ATC-wise we are already beginning to see the penalties of failing to plan our air services (e.g., the northbound Gatwick services); but it is in the context of UK and Europe where I strongly believe that we must alter our ways. However, it may first be worth briefly examining why the turbine, and in particular jet aircraft, have had the impact they have; and also to take a look at, if not to understand, why we as a country have been so backward in making use of air transport. It would seem that when evaluating the jet for short hauls many people failed to give proper weight to factors which experience has shown really matter to the traveller. Take speed. At first glance the improvements in short-haul ramp-to-ramp times don't look significant, but they become so to the rapidly growing numbers of there-and-back in the day men (and women). Incidentally, the value of this mode of travel to the businessman has been badly underestimated, too. To all intents the jet has eliminated the rough-ride problem which was much more of a passenger deterrent than is generally realised. However, their great attribute is that for the first time since the Zeppelins the cabin environment is acceptably good throughout; no longer is there a sizeable area of cabin which has to be avoided even at the cost of trampling down old ladies. Road, Rail and Air Except for a few routes, private car travel is not only slow, but hard work and relatively dangerous. The situation is un- likely to improve in the forecastable future. Cross-country rail services are very thin and still pretty slow. The ride on main- line trains has deteriorated to a point where sleep by night or work by day is difficult or even impossible. Although, thanks to the importing of aircraft engineers, the ride problems have now been largely solved technically, effective implementation looks like taking a couple of decades. I guess that the principal reason why so many people in the UK are at best apathetic towards having more internal air transport is that they have never tried it. This is perhaps not surprising, since there has been singularly little effort to sell its value. Most air-transport advertising in this country has been directed strictly at the sun-and-fun trade. Let's face it, too—the available services are still pretty thin on the ground and unco-ordinated. Nevertheless, over and over again one meets somebody who was forced by circumstances into the UK air and, to his surprise, found himself completely "sold" (remember the big jump up in the number of passengers on BEA's domestic services following the rail strike). If our reluctant traveller happened to make good use of a self-drive hire-car, the chances are that he ended up a positive zealot. The hire-car has made a virtue out of arriving away from the city centre. If we had the internal air transport we could modestly expect to have (about the level which the US had ten years ago) it would mean that virtually the whole of industry in Britain would be within reach for a quick out-and-back in the day consultation, while still leaving some time for keeping things under control back home. Apart from business it would also make possible relaxed full weekends with relatives and friends more or less anywhere. I am sure that good air trans- port is an essential requirement for industry to flourish in the more peripheral parts of Britain and if the population is not to continue to drift towards the south-east. It is in the context of Europe, however, that the case for more and better air transport becomes overwhelming. With surface transport the UK is out on a limb. With the aid of the jet we can become, in effect, part of the Continent. Whether or not one is a Common Marketeer, it is perfectly clear that we simply cannot afford to be at a disadvantage transport-wise to the continental European countries. At the moment in Europe air transport is still very much,
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