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Aviation History
1968
1968 - 0330.PDF
At Windsor Field, Nassau, last Thursday: Eagle's first 707 at the end of the pre-inaugural inclusive-tour flights to Bermuda and the Bahamas. As this article relates, Eagle is now planning to re-establish the scheduled-service network taken over by BOAC nearly six yean "Flight" photographs AIR TRANSPORT... ' ' ^ EAGLE WESTERN AGAIN ON APRIL 21 ten years nearly to the day after a Viscountleft Blackibushe to start a new Eagle venture in Bermuda,one of the independent's newly acquired Boeing 707- 138Bs will fly the Eagle flag back into these two colonies. The 1958 venture lasted four years, culminating in scheduled Boeing 707 services to Miami from London in 1962, when the BOAC-Cunard deal brought a quite extensive western-route pattern to an abrupt end. Now, like the defiant Sisyphus, Mr Harold Bamberg is back at the foot of the same hill. The fortnightly inclusive-tour services being inaugurated next month are not going to make a fortune overnight at fares of about 3d per mile, which is the air carriage element of the total tour price. But these flights could be the first threads of a web replacing the one swept away nearly six years ago. British Eagle has already reapplied for scheduled services from London to Bermuda and Nassau, with an optional call at Chicago. These applications—together with London-New York—have been heard but not yet decided by the Air Trans- port Licensing Board. Eagle has now, in the last week, re- applied for New York-Bermuda and Nassau-Miami. Conceiv- ably the independent will also bid for London-Miami. The inauguration of a 707 inclusive-tour service six years after inaugurating a 707 scheduled service may not sound much like progress, but it is a remarkable story of recovery from a very nearly fatal blow. The Bermuda-registered Viscount that left Blackbushe that April Sunday morning began work by operating a daily scheduled service to New York, later linking with Nassau and, together with a second aircraft, operating a Nassau-Miami scheduled service. The Bamberg strategy was to exploit the fact that these American tourist-playground islands on the doorstep of the world's biggest air transport market are British territory—with unlimited traffic rights, no nonsense about single-carrier designation, abundant local good- will, and exemption from any United Kingdom route licences except for services to UK points. On Bermuda-New York Eagle successfully held its own against the 707s of Pan American and BOAC and the DC-8s of Eastern. In four years the British share of the traffic went up from 26 to 34 per cent. It was the .same story on Nassau- Miami; in competition with Pan American, Mackey and the other British carrier, Bahamas Airways, Eagle's efforts increased the British share of the traffic. Across the mid-Atlantic the independent introduced Skycoach—extra-low-fare services for British nationals on the cabotage routes between London and Bermuda /Nassau. Eagle's tie-up with Cunard in 1960, which was to prove so fateful, was followed by the London-New York licence bid in 1961. This was granted by the ATLB in its first major case, on the reasoning that there was sufficient traffic on the route to justify two British carriers. The licence was revoked on BOAC's appeal to the Government on the grounds that BOAC (who had ordered more Boeing 707-420s during the hearings) had sufficient capacity. Eagle had by then taken delivery of the first of two new 707-420s. They diverted it to the mid-Atlantic route, deter- mined to develop Bermuda/Bahamas—then served by BOAC Britannias—and the new Miami market. But Cunard lost their nerve; they did a deal with BOAC, and in June 1962 the misbegotten BOAC-Cunard was born. The corporation took over the Boeings and annexed the Eagle western routes built up so painstakingly over four years. It was a bitter reverse. What would be the British position today on the North Atlantic if Eagle's licence had not been revoked, and if the BOAC-Cunard deal had not been done? Who knows-Eagie would almost certainly be operating a dozen Super VClOs, i Britain's share of the traffic would be increasing. BOAC-Cunard is dead; the British share of the North Atlantic market is falling steadily; Cunard's future is bleak, its connections with air transport—the line's only hope for the future—severed; the Government is faced with a £30 milli°n bill for QE II, and Eagle is back in Bermuda and the Bahamas. "Eagle Is Back" ran the advertisement in Bermuda's Rw Gazette last week when the special pre-inaugural and crew- training flight touched down at Kindley Field in a wind oi 30 knots gusting to 50. Almost everyone who was anyone was at the airport or the receptions in town for what was virtually a re-enactment of the event nearly six years before, when Boeing in exactly the same markings—except for the w°r Cunard—inaugurated the independent's mid-Atlantic servic • While last week's flight crew took off again on training with their Qantas and Aer Lingus check captains and a details Board of Trade flight inspector, the receptions and speeches began- In Hamilton the Governor, Lord Martonmere, was honour at a vast luncheon—one of a dozen official fun during two days in Bermuda and two in the Bahamas. Excellency was delighted to welcome Eagle back—"I "J^ you'll have tremendous success and long may you "° 1(| and prosper." Mr Bamberg replied that, this time, Eagle w b lnot be leaving. Berrnu Practically every hotelier and travel manager in and the Bahamas turned up to these functions. In visitors went to Bermuda from the British Isles; today da
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