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Aviation History
1969
1969 - 0067.PDF
... ' "•:;••.' -' •-:• ' ^ :• •••rfm:y •M Lost week the directors of Air West accepted an offer from Mr Howard Hughes to buy the airline. Meanwhile the co-ordination difficulties being experienced, following the merger of Bonanza, Pacific and West Coast into Air West, may be said to be reflected in the hybrid styling seen on much of their equipment, including this DC-9-10 photographed recently at Ontario, California ME A BACK IN BUSINESS ALTHOUGH hard hit by the loss of eight of their 13 aircraft in the Israeli raid on December 28 (see last week's issue, pages 2-3), Middle East Airlines had already, by December 31, succeeded in arranging leases of the required capacity to operate a full schedule. Three Comets had been leased from Kuwait Airways, a Boeing 707 from Air France and another from Pakistan International. Negotiations were then in progress with several airlines, including Irish International and Ethiopian Airlines. A Caravelle of Alia, Royal Jordanian Airlines, was operating MEA's Beirut-Amman service. Trans-Mediterranean Airways, the scheduled cargo carrier, who lost a DC-6 and a DC-4 in the raid, said last week that arrangements had been made to lease replacement aircraft and that services were not affected. AIRLINES' "BLOW" TO LLOYD'S THE new insurance organisation being set up by airlines will be a serious blow to the London aviation insurance market, writes a correspondent in Lloyd's List Annual Review for 1968. The airlines anticipate that the organisation, under the chairmanship of Sir Giles Guthrie and with Mr Clarence Pell as director-general, will be able to start operations on July 1 from its base in Switzerland. "It seems incredible," says the correspondent, "that BOAC, a Government-owned airline, should contemplate participation in a plan to remove to Switzerland even.a part of this prop to the nation's economic structure." Even in years when the airline insurance account shows little or no profit to under writers, he points out, there is still the invisible export represented by the brokerage earned in London. Further, the continuous receipt of premium which remains until claims are settled helps with the sterling situation. The loss of revenue to the London market will increase with the growth of aviation and with the introduction of the new large jets, the correspondent writes. It is the view of the chairman of one large firm of brokers handling airline accounts that the capacity to provide complete cover for the enormous limits required by the big jets will be found. Much depends on the prosperity or otherwise of the market in the immediate future. The problem of gigantic liability, he says, is complicated by the fact that under the American legal system: (a) claim ants' lawyers are paid on a percentage basis calculated on .the amount of the settled claim—the "contingency fee" system —and (b) a successful.defence against a claim, no matter how frivolous, fictitious or fraudulent the claim, does not allow a recovery of defence costs from the claimant. With considerable topicality in view of the subsequent Israeli attack on Beirut Airport on December 28, in which 13 Arab- operated airliners were destroyed, the correspondent goes on to say: "War risks on aircraft, although largely insured by the marine underwriters in the Lloyd's market, are a source of concern to the aviation section of the market, which gen erally feels that the vast accumulation of values on an airfield rules out the feasibility of claims being fully met in the event of a nuclear explosion on such a target. It has been estimated that on a normal day the value of aircraft parked on London Airport is several times greater than the value of ships berthed between Tilbury and London Bridge. The aviation markets are therefore suggesting automatic termina tion of cover from the time a nuclear missile is dropped or fired and before it explodes, or in the event of war between the major powers." BOAC GETS BULK FARES APPROVAL has been given by the Air Transport Licensing Board in London to a proposal for new contract bulk fares applicable on flights from Britain to Bermuda and the Caribbean. The fares will be available to wholesale travel agents organising package tours to the area and who are pre pared to take up blocks of at least 20 seats on 10 or more BOAC services to one or other of the destinations named— Bermuda, Nassau, Freeport and Antigua. The lowest seat rate to Bermuda under the new system will be £52, and will apply when 20-seat blocks are booked on more than 26 departures. This compares with the existing group inclusive-tour basing fare of £75 gross (£67 10s net). The fares will be available from April 1. Bulk fares are under discussion at the moment for possible introduction by member airlines of IATA, following the inconclusive result of the Cannes traffic conference last autumn. The ATLB's approval can however be put into effect by BOAC without waiting for IATA by virtue of the fact that only cabotage routes are involved. In its decision, the ATLB said: "This proposal seems to us to be a constructive approach to the development of modesdy priced inclusive tours to Bermuda and the Caribbean." It pointed out that the size of present types of long-haul equip ment tended to inhibit the development of this type of inclusive-tour market, as the charterer would have to book more seats on each flight than was justified by the size of the market. The fares will only be available for UK-originating traffic at present; if an eastbound equivalent is shown to be needed, both the ATLB and BOAC have indicated that they would be amenable to it. THREE-ELEVEN v AIRBUS IN his review of the past year in the latest issue of BEA Magazine, Sir Anthony Milward writes: "The European Airbus negotiations occupied much valuable planning time with abso lutely no result by the end of the year, except that the future of the BAC Three-Eleven concept now looks considerably brighter." On December 30 the chairman and chief executive of BEA, with some 20 members of the top management, were given a detailed presentation of the Three-Eleven. The presen tation was given by Mr Geoffrey Knight, chairman and manag ing director of BAC Weybridge division, Mr C. J. Hamshaw Thomas, manager, market development, and Mr John Pro- thero Thomas, sales engineering manager. Sir George Edwards, chairman of BAC, was also present.
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