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Aviation History
1975
1975 - 0472.PDF
412 AIRLINE EFFICIENCY FLIGHT International, 13 March I97S Fig 4, below right, ATKsj$ is a better measure of labour productivity than an index based on mere head-counting. Fig 5, right, shows ground-staff productivity as a function of ground and service expenses per aircraft departure. Fig 6, far right, shows BOAC, KLM and Sabena straying from the median line 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 Ground & service expenses/aircraft departure (dollars) "0 100 200 300 400 500 Maintenance & overhaul expenses/aircratt hours (dollars) falls by, say, 10 per cent, costs wou|d rise by the same amount. It might have been anticipated that the points shown in fig 6 would have shown more scatter because the "all other personnel" group includes not only ground staff but also general administrative and management personnel. Even with these elements included, however, a reasonably good curve emerges, which helps to pinpoint two outliers, TAP and SAS. These two airlines may have allocated to the "all other personnel" group staff who ought to have been assigned to other labour categories. Certainly in the case of TAP and SAS they do appear to have a dispro portionately large number of their staff in this category. Other curves of labour productivity, the productivity of flight crew against flight crew salaries and expenses per aircraft hour for example, can be drawn up using Tables 3 and 4. The investigation of efficiency could then be taken a step further using the full set of such curves (not shown). A list of airlines which constantly retain higher or lower costs than the mean would highlight those most or least effective in controlling costs. Collating, say, the four air lines with the highest or lowest labour productivity would give another measure of the most efficient or inefficient airlines. The report of the Edwards Committee published in 1969 (see also Flight for February 20, 1975, page 274) suggested that airline efficiency could not be measured in a compara- 2 00 20 25 30 35 Total operating costs/ATK tive way. But the problems are not insuperable. It is not only the airlines but also the regulatory bodies and the shareholders of both private and publicly owned airlines (i.e. the taxpayers) who need to know just how efficiently their airlines are performing. A systematic approach to the problems of measuring airline efficiency has been a much needed requirement for a very long time and with the industry now facing austere times the need has become even more urgent. Three Croatians, who were sentenced to 12 years' imprison ment for hijacking an SAS aircraft from Malmo to Spain in 1972, have been pardoned by General Franco. The Japanese Government has approved an amendment to the aviation agreement with Pakistan to allow PIA aircraft on the Karachi-Peking-Tokyo route. Iran Air and Air France previously had been given approval to operate on the Peking- Tokyo route. Japan Air Lines will be allowed stops in Bombay and Athens westward while PIA will be allowed Peking, Shanghai and Canton. An Aeronautical Research Council working party investigat ing the dangers of turbulence caused by high buildings close to runways held its first meeting last week. It is expected that the British Air Line Pilots' Association and the Civil Aviation Authority will give evidence to the ARC working party. The study follows the heavy landing of a VC10 at Gatwick in which turbulence from buildings is believed to have been a con tributing factor (see Sensor in Flight for February 27). The new airport hotel close to runway 28 ait Heathrow is reported to result in noticeable turbulence when the wind is in the north and north-west. In December the 11 US trunk airlines paid 23-98 cents/gal for their fuel compared with 23-22 cents/gal in November. Consumption during December, at 607 million gal, was up 9 per cent on the previous month. The eight US local-service airlines paid 23-73 cents/gal in December, up from 22-28 cents/gal. The suggestion by the president and chairman of American Airlines, Albert V. Casey, that US carriers should voluntarily limit their fuel consumption to 90 per cent of their 1972 levels has not brought a favourable response from the airlines. While putting forward the idea of fuel con sumption limits, Mr Casey strongly disapproves President Ford's plan to put an additional tax on crude oil. American Airlines is to consolidate its US reservations centres. There will now be four regional centres in New York, Dallas-Fort Worth, Cincinnati and Los Angeles, instead of the previous 11. Innsbruck airport is to be modernised to take twinjet air liners. It had been threatened with closure and the only scheduled services now operated are flown by Jet Air's Islanders. Approach aids and runway surface and lighting are to be improved in hopes of attracting inclusive-tour as well as scheduled flights. CP Air reports a $2-4 million net income last year, com pared with a $4-2 million profit in 1973. 1974 revenue was up nearly 50 per cent to $276-8 million, but the previous year's figures had been distorted by a 68-day strike and the airline estimates that the rise was nearer 35 per cent. Early last year the airline introduced two Boeing 747s on trans continental and North Pacific routes, and this took the number of passengers carried from 1,756,000 in 1973 to 2,284,000. Le Havre expansion With the aim of attracting more long-haul charter traffic as well as developing its existing inclusive-tour and scheduled-service business, the Le Havre Port Authority has sanctioned the installation of an instru ment landing system and the extension of the main runway to 2,300m. In 1968 Le Havre airport handled 2,800 commercial passengers, in 1972 29,750 passengers passed through the airport and in 1973 31,250 passengers were handled. The number of commercial aircraft using the airport grew from 2,120 in 1968 to 8,360 in 1973. Scheduled services are operated to eight points, including London, Jersey and Frankfurt, and charter services are flown to a number of destinations in North Africa and around the Mediterranean.
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