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Aviation History
1969
1969 - 0065.PDF
FLIGHT International, 9 January 1969 49 New phase in the As ONE OF HIS LAST ACTS IN OFFICE, President Johnson jusl before Christmas fired the green light for the next great stage in the development of air traffic,in the Pacific area. He was giving his casting vote on the judgment of the US Civil Aeronautics Board on the longest and probably the most complex case in its 30-year history. A second US carrier around the world—TWA being authorised to close its east- bound and westbound routes with the missing Pacific sector— and a second US carrier across the South Pacific to Australia were major points in the final decision (as reported in Flight last week, page 5). The North Atlantic has been in the limelight of air trans port in the 20 or so post-war years; on the Pacific, the new route awards are the first made by the CAB since 1946. Apart from signifying the start of a new phase of rapid development in Pacific traffic, the decision also gives an important boost to tourism in the area. Coming as it did immediately before Christmas, it also handed a seasonal, if not exactly unexpected, gift to the aircraft manufacturers, who can rejoice in the prospect of a spate of equipment orders starting in the present year. The CAB decision is to take effect on February 17. The airlines' benefiting from the route awards are North west, Continental, Pan American—which already has a wide Pacific network—TWA and Flying Tiger. Bfaniff is also a beneficiary with a new sector awarded for an existing route. The big surprise of the decision was the refusal of the Presi dent to approve the CAB's decision that American Airlines should be permitted to extend its Hawaii route across the Central Pacific as far as Japan, on the grounds that a third US carrier serving Japan would be superfluous. This echoed the recommendation of the CAB examiner, Mr. Robert L. Park, who heard the case; he asked the CAB to authorise Northwest to extend its present services to Hawaii onwards to Okinawa and Tokyo, and made no recommendation in favour of American. (Northwest already has the Great Circle route to Tokyo via Anchorage.) The President's ruling, which has been received with some mystification by airline officials, was stated by him to be based primarily on considera tions of foreign policy, and was "the unanimous recommenda tion of the Secretary of State and my other principal advisers on international aviation matters." There has been speculation that the decision may have been influenced by the fact that former White House advisers are now on the staff of American Airlines, and that the present Secretary of Commerce, Mr C. R. Smith, is a former president of the airline. Main points from the route awards are as follows: — Continental will be enabled to establish a South Pacific route running as far as New Zealand and Australia. The co-terminal points in the USA for this include Chicago, Kansas City, Denver, Phoenix, Hilo (Hawaii) and Honolulu, and the route includes Samoa, Fiji, points in the Trust Territory, Guam and Okinawa. This coincides basically with the route structure currently operated by Pan American across the South Pacific. The airline recommended by the CAB examiner to join Pan American on these routes was Eastern. The CAB decided, however, that Continental had shown itself able to compete with larger airlines, and was an aggressive and low-cost operator with Pacific experience. Northwest will become another competitor with Pan American, this .time on the Central Pacific route. The route extends to Japan from co-terminals which include New York, Philadel phia, Washington, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, San Fransisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu and Okinawa. The airline's present By DAVID WOOLLEY Great Circle route runs from New York, Chicago and Minneapolis to Japan through Anchorage. It is now authorised to add all the above co-terminals to the route. Pan American, which at present serves Fairbanks from Seattle/ Tacoma and Portland becomes a competitor Of Northwest with the award of the Great Circle route to Japan via Fair banks, not only from the West Coast points but also from New York/Newark. The decision also allows the airline to add New York/Newark to its existing Central and South Pacific routes so as to extend them to the eastern seaboard of the USA. Trans World, as mentioned earlier, get its round-the-world authorisation, although an initial recommendation by the examiner that it should include Japan has not been followed. The carrier's new Pacific route, from Los Angeles. Hawaii. Guam and Okinawa to Taiwan, Hong Kong. Thailand, Ceylon and India, will connect with TWA's existing route westwards across the Atlantic/ The CAB has pointed out that it has favoured a second service around the world ever since the Pacific route case in 1946, and it had hoped that this could be achieved by connec tions between Northwest and TWA. But as this has not come about, it has now decided to allow the closing of the gap in existing TWA services. Braniff will now be able to carry passengers between the US mainland (from points such as Miami, Atlanta, Houston and Dallas) to Hawaii, via Mexico City and Acapulco. This repre sents in effect the splitting between Braniff and Continental of the new route, from the east and south central areas of the USA to Australia and the South Pacific via Mexico, which the CAB examiner had originally recommended should be given to Eastern. Flying Tiger was awarded all-cargo services along the lines recommended by the examiner: from a group of mainland co-terminal points including New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles on a Great Circle route to Japan and other points in the Orient which include Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines. The examiner had said that this should be granted on a five-year experimental term, and that Flying Tiger should not be eligable for subsidies. This was endorsed in the final decision, and the airline was not given authority to serve Hawaii, on the grounds that combination services were adequate for the amount of cargo offering. While approving the route, the President expressed "serious reservations" about the advisability of authorising an all-cargo service to the Orient. Surveying the general background to this case, the CAB examiner stressed the importance of US involvement in the Pacific area in terms of defence, trade and tourism. Hawaii is the focal point of this involvement, with US military expen diture constituting the major part of the State's income, increasing from S373 million to $460 million between 1960 and 1965. Trade in the Pacific area is increasing rapidly—by 152 per cent in the ten-year period to 1965 (compared with a US world increase of 81 per cent). There is a great deal of optimism over the development of tourism in the Pacific, and this is backed by a record of considerable growth—the increase in the number of visitors to the main countries of the Orient. Australasia and the South Pacific in the years 1960-65 was generally between 100 and 250 per cent. Passenger traffic on US mainland/Hawaii-Orient routes grew by about 20 per cent a year in the 15 years to 1965. The number of commercial passengers carried on the route in 1965.
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