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Aviation History
1972
1972 - 2018.PDF
in order to keep the airline's West German traffic rights alive. The new general manager Germany for BEA is Tony Caro, who brings to the job considerable experience of the network in various parts of Europe. He will be based in Berlin. From here the IGS operate to Hamburg and Bremen along the North Corridor, Hanover, Diisseldorf and Cologne/Bonn along the Middle Corridor, and Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Munich by the South Corridor. Each of these restricted airways through East Germany is 25 miles wide and aircraft must not fly above 10,000ft. First BEA flights from Tempelhof to the island of Sylt were made on June 17, although until September 10 the route will be operated on a restricted basis. BEA is very conscious of the probable impact of Britain's entry into the Common Market, and is looking for increases in traffic on the trunk routes into West Germany which link with the Berlin services, and also on the daily non-stop London- Berlin flight. Arnold Fraser, the Manchester-based engineering manager of the division, and Len Jarvis, BEA's station engineer at Tempelhof, outlined the methods by which maximum aircraft utilisation is achieved. Overall mainten ance control is exercised at Manchester and such tasks as 250hr checks are undertaken there. A defect control section is responsible for analysing and predicting trends whenever possible. First-line servicing is carried out in Berlin with the 100 or so engineering staff stationed at Tempelhof. The average journey time on the IGS is just under lhr and BEA operates a similar schedule seven days a week (with the exception of the route to Frankfurt which is not flown on Sundays). Maintenance and operations obviously have to be close-knit to keep to this programme, but to cater for the inevitable snags a stand-by aircraft is available at Manchester with another at Berlin. Either of these is ready at short notice to take the place of an "aircraft on ground' (AOG) anywhere in the net work. The stand-by aircraft in Berlin is permitted to fly the Berlin-Hamburg-Berlin sectors while fulfilling the function of a "spare." Engines are also available at Man chester and Berlin to be airlifted at short notice to wherever they may be required. Once an engine has been removed from an aircraft for whatever reason at some point on the network, it has to be returned to BEA's Heathrow base. A typical 48hr schedule of one of the IGS aircraft is as follows: 0640 leave Manchester; then to Glasgow-Man chester - Diisseldorf - Berlin - Munich - Diisseldorf - Berlin - BEA's Union jack motif has appeared (left) on the airline's One-Eleven fleet now that the partnership with Air France is to be dissolved; tails were previously painted dark blue. West Berlin's Tempelhof Airport (above) with the original terminal buildings and the circular layout still bears the grandiose stamp of pre-war Germany Frankfurt, where a night stop is made after arrival at 2040. Take-off is at 0600 the following morning, and on to Berlin- Stuttgart - Berlin - Frankfurt - Berlin - Cologne/Bonn - Berlin-Frankfurt-Berlin where a night stop is made after arriving at 1900. In this way, the division's aircraft are able to operate both domestic and international routes. Since the Super One-Eleven division was formed it has been found possible to have the maintenance control of the engineering side of the organisation located, and work ing in conjunction, with the operations control. A measure of the success of the organisation is the fact that delays due to engineering reasons as a percentage of departures have averaged 2 per cent. There have been, naturally enough, a few problems, notably concerned with air systems, landing gear and some of the specialised Cat 2 equipment. Where necessary these have been cured by modification to design features. In the light of operational experience built up over the last two years or so the maintenance schedule has been altered slightly. In particular, special checks have been initiated on various components in addition to the routine examinations undertaken. In general, the engineering philosophy of the division is for planned maintenance to be undertaken at Manchester and defect rectification in Berlin. The scheduling mentioned enables the IGS to operate efficiently round the year in an atmosphere of intense commercial competition. This competition is likely to become more pronounced with the arrival of other carriers in Berlin. The recent Soviet-West German detente must point the way to an eventual service by Lufthansa, which has never since the war been allowed to operate into the Western part of the city. Other airlines are known to be interested in services to Berlin, and the easing of the surface travel restrictions is already having its effect. Nevertheless, the Berliners are air-travel conscious and a city that was once entirely supplied in this way is not likely to forget the importance of air transport. •
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