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Aviation History
1975
1975 - 0587.PDF
FLIGHT International, 77 March 1975 521 loaded flight had carried seven passengers, on January 12. Carryings had improved from a late 1974 figure of 14 per cent below the previous year to only three per cent down. The break-even load factor was 67 per cent and the 1975-76 forecast actual was €2 per cent, with break even in 1976-77. Now that Eastern Airlines' shuttle routes needed, three to four sectors an hour they were achieving 70 per cent. A 72 per cent target appeared feasible. The shuttle was also the best solution for the London- Edinburgh route. As a witness for BCAL, Mr Alistair Pugh said that the 20,000 air passengers that British Airways expected to transfer to the shuttle must come from his company and represented 15 per cent of its traffic. When the shuttle proposal was aired a year ago it had been presented as two-hourly; in fact it was now providing unlimited capacity at the pre-shuttle timings. The £2 differential would in crease BCAL traffic by 18 per cent, of which 16,000 pas sengers (2-5 per cent) would come from the shuttle. BCAL would be £150,000 better off even if its fare was only £16. The 18 per cent could be accommodated on existing flights, but if the £2 differential (plus a meal) attracted large 1,000 900 «800 1 700 600 500 400 London -Glasgow total air traffic Actual = Shuttle passengers -Conventional air passengers Forecast Growth projected before fuel price rises 1974-75 ESTIMATED APT impact 70-71 71-72 72-73 73-74 74-75 75-76 76~77 77-78 78-79 79"80 80-81 numbers of "canny Scots" additional aircraft were avail able. The shuttle, said Mr Pugh, had had no measurable effect on BCAL traffic, although generally its fall in traffic was slightly worse than British Airways'. Mr Alan Cooke, a transport economist, disputed the State airline's figures on behalf of BCAL, in particular the claim that Eastern was achieving a 70 per cent load factor. The 1973 figure for Washington-New York was 63-2 per cent in the tenth year, according to the US Civil Aero nautics Board. (The chairman directed both parties to furnish documentary proof of their figures.) Eastern had a much more even flow of passengers than there was on London-Glasgow, said Mr Cooke. Its peak four hours pro duced only 40 per cent of the demand, whereas on the Scottish route 53 per cent travelled at 0800hr, 0900hr, 1700hr, 1800hr or 1900hr. Computer studies of the shuttle, carried out by Mr Cooke with assistance from Eastern, had explored the effects of weekly traffic flows varying from 2,000 to 50,000 (compared with the present range of 9,000 to 15,000), the effect of using aircraft having anything from 20 to 340 seats and the results of smoothing the peaks. The only way to obtain a load factor higher than 58 per cent with a traffic flow of 700,000 passengers per annum was to change the operating pattern, said Mr
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