FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1967
1967 - 0793.PDF
Official Organ of the Royal Aero Club First Aeronautics Weekly in the World rounded in 1909 THURSDAY 18 MAY 1947 Number 3036 Volume 91 Editor-in-Chief MAURICE A. SMITH DFC Editor J. M. RAMSDEN Air TransportEditor H. A. TAYLOR ProductionEditor ROY CASEY Managing Director H. N. PRIAULX MBE In this World News Parliament "•'•:: Air Transport What Might Have Been Sport and Business Prospects for the Nationals The Slingsby T.53 Defence Bolkow's BolOS Letters Industry International Special feature: BAC Sud-Aviation Concorde, including fold-out drawing , ; Biggin Hill Report Spaceflight Straight and Level issue 774 776 777 78 1 783 784 785 790 794 795 798 799 817 8 1 9 8 2 0a Iliffe Transport Publications Ltd, DorsetHouse, Stamford Street, London SE1; telephone Waterloo 01-928 3333. Tele-grams/Telex: Flight Iliffepres, 25137 London. Annual subscriptions: Home£6. Overseas £6 for one year; £12 for three years. Canada and USA $18 forone year; $36 for three years. Second Class Mail privileges authorised at NewYork, NY. Branch Offices: Coventry, 8-10 Corpora-tion Street; telephone Coventry 25210. Birmingham, 401 Lynton House, WalsallRoad, Birmingham 22b; telephone 021 BIRchfield 4838. Manchester, 260 Deans-gate, Manchester 3; telephone Blackfriars 4412 or Deansgate 3595. Glasgow, 123Hope Street, Glasgow C2; telephone Central 1265-6. Bristol, 11 Marsh Street,Bristol 1; telephone Bristol 21491-2. New York, NY: Thomas Skinner & Co(Publishers) Ltd, 300 East 42nd Street, New York 10017, USA; telephone 867-3900. © Iliffe Transport Publications Ltd1967. Permission to reproduce illustra- tions and letterpress can be granted onlyunder written agreement. Brief extracts or comments may be made with dueacknowledgement. A Policy for British Air Transport AFEW minutes' work on the latest ICAO traffic statistics showsthat Britain's share of world scheduled air transport is goingdown. It was nearly 7 per cent at the time of the 1960 Civil Aviation Licensing Act, but it was down to 6 per cent in 1965—the latest year for which world statistics are available. The fall is small but steady each year. Britain is, of course, a very large air-trading nation, second only to the United States, and her air transport industry has been growing at an average rate of 14 per cent a year since 1960. The United States carriers have maintained their country's share of the market (56 per cent) over the same period. The British share has declined. What is to be done? First, license more competition among British carriers. Anyone who advocates competition is immediately assumed to be a corpora- tion-wrecker or a champion of private-enterprise piracy. This is wrong. Regulated competition between public-enterprise on the one hand and private enterprise on the other is not easy, because each sector has different obligations. But it can be done. It is being done on London-Glasgow, with great benefit to the travelling public; and much more of it is desirable. BOAC are actually turning away charters and freight. BOAC's charter business is today one-third the size it was at the time of the Licensing Act. Yet independents prepared to risk their own capital, and to sell charters aggressively, are frustrated by a licensing system biased towards the corporations and by an appeals machine controlled by a Minister with a vested interest in the corporations. Efficiency of the ATLB Secondly, improve the efficiency of the licensing system. The Air Transport Licensing Board must be more independent of the Minister and of politics. It needs a proper staff to analyse traffic, costs, revenues and accounts, and it should keep a check on pooling agreements. It needs the power to approve IATA fares, which are merely rubber- stamped—without accountability—by the Government department responsible for BOAC and BEA, and often in pro-rating conflict with the licensing board's domestic tariffs. The ATLB ought also to have more say in Britain's bilateral agreements with other countries. It is absurd that the licensing board can do no more than "consult" about agreements which so fundamentally affect their job. And the appeal system has developed into a time-wasting duplication of ATLB hearings. Appeals should be allowable only on points of law or in the case of genuine new evidence—which, if established, should go back to the licensing board. Thirdly, publish more data. Three months ago we asked the Board of Trade for an interview with someone who could explain why the information published about British air transport is so un- believably poor. We have long thought that the data famine seriously impoverishes the whole airline industry, and leads to ad hoc policies and planning. Our request is still "under review." We hoped when the Board of Trade took over British civil aviation that there would be better Government sponsorship of the air transport industry. This hope has not yet been realised. It is time that it was.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
