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Aviation History
1977
1977 - 2000.PDF
6 FLIGHT International, 2 July 1977 Airtransport cargo rates, and the Board's con tinued deliberations over Iata's pro posals on travel-agent commissions. The new agreement opens six new gateways in the USA to British Air lines : Houston, Atlanta, San Fran cisco, Seattle, Dallas/Fort Worth and Anchorage. San Francisco and Seattle were previously linked to London by Pan Am, but the others will be new to both sides. Cathay Pacific will be designated to the West Coast of the USA, via Guam or Honolulu. The new gateways are the main benefit of Bermuda 2 to the British carriers, but the US negotiators exacted a price. It was always ex pected that B.CAL would have either Atlanta or Houston to itself for three years; whichever route B.CAL de veloped first, a US airline would have the same head start on the other. This was "horse sense," in B.CAL's opinion, preventing a new, fairly slim route from being swamped by two airlines. But at the eleventh hour the Americans demanded that Dallas/ Fort Worth should be linked to Lon don by two airlines from Day One of the new agreement (after strong pres sure from Texas on the US Adminis tration) and that a US all-cargo ser vice should connect London and Houston. Moreover, the US said that the US airline could operate DFW- London non-stop, while the British airline would have to operate a one- stop service for the first three years. B.CAL estimates that a service to DFW, only 200 miles from Houston, could drain a third of the traffic from its fledgling route. The British inde pendent is going in fighting, bringing the planned start date of its daily Houston service forward to October 23 and applying to the Civil Aviation Authority for a licence to operate London-DFW, probably via Houston. The airline is no longer sure whether it can plan to use its DC-10-30s on the route, which will be inaugurated with 707s. British Airways, on the other hand, considers Bermuda 2 "a step in the right direction" despite some anxiety over the extended combination and change-of-gauge rights. More gate ways mean better service; the airline can now compete on Seattle and San Francisco and it hopes that the capacity control mechanism will be workable and will eventually lead to higher load factors. But Thomson of B.CAL points out that it was not necessary to denounce the 1946 agreement in order to open the additional gateways. "We could have negotiated a better arrangement for Atlanta and Houston under the old Bermuda Agreement," he said last week. "The Americans were very keen on nominating additional points." He pointed out that "the final concessions were made under the threat of cessa tion: we could have held out if we had been negotiating within the old agreement." Also causing anxiety to B.CAL is the "fifteenth point," the new gateway which the USA will be entitled to designate after three years, initially at least with a US carrier only. B.CAL is worried that, with the current atti tudes of the US Administration, this could be another Southern city. US airlines were reacting cautiously last week, partly because US designa tions on the new routes are still on the Civil Aeronautics Board's desk. Last year's transatlantic route pro ceeding, which named new trans atlantic carriers and gateways, was sent back to the CAB in the last days of the Ford Administration. Delta and Braniff as well as the current trans atlantic airlines will be pressing their cases before the CAB; Delta has a good chance of getting Atlanta and Bursa Hava Yollari (BHY) is the name of a new Turkish regional operator, which will initially be operating a BAC Viscount leased from Midair. The airline is looking at the Short SD3-30 and the Casa C.2I2 Yak-42—Russia's next export airliner YAKOVLEV's Yak-42 airliner should enter service with Aeroflot this year, and the Soviet airline requires 200 aircraft. Aviaexport is confident that the Yak-42 will be certificated much more easily than the smaller Yak-40. New details of the Yak-42 became available at the Paris Show, confirm ing and amplifying Flight's prelimin ary technical description of the air craft (see Flight for March 19). The empty weight, at 63,8481b, 28,960kg, is slightly less than Flight's estimate, but the fuel capacity (26,5001b, 12,000kg, for take-off) confirms our figure. The high-bypass-ratio Lotarev D-36 turbofan is confirmed to be of three- shaft layout, a Rolls-Royce trademark, up to now. In fact the D-36 is a "baby RB.211" in layout, with 14 compressor stages including the single-stage fan, single-stage high-pressure and inter mediate-pressure turbines and a three- stage turbine driving the fan. Braniff will go for Dallas/Fort Worth. Whichever airlines operate the new routes, the US and British Govern ments have informally agreed to work through a few test cases in order- to try out the capacity control mech anism. "We do not anticipate that every route will be scrutinised every season," commented British nego tiator Shovelton. "It is an optional procedure." The new agreement presents no clear, cut-and-dried solution to the problems of Anglo-US air relations in general or of the North Atlantic in particular. With the widely contrast ing philosophies which the two sides brought to the original negotiations, this was not to be expected. The general opinion of most observers is that the success of Bermuda 2 will depend on the extent to which the two governments can collaborate on filling in the framework of the new agreement. BILL SWEETMAN Britannia expects record summer BRITISH independent operator Britannia Airways expects to carry half a million passengers during July and August^ most of them on inclu sive tour holidays to the Canary Islands and Mediterranean. Each of its 16-strong Boeing 737 fleet will be flying more than 12hr per day and sometimes as much as 15hr per day during the summer months, to achieve a utilisation of 3,600hr for this year. About 60 per cent of Britannia's flying is devoted to Thomson Holidays with the remainder going to charters outside the Thomson Travel Group (which owns Britannia) and to the UK Ministry of Defence. Manag ing director Capt Derek Davison tells Flight that he expects Britannia Air ways to carry 2J2 million passengers this year, 250,000 more than in 1976. He expects the airline's present 30 per cent market share of UK inclu sive-tour traffic to continue to im prove. Although the airline does not sell seats directly to the public, its fleet planning is influenced by the habits of its passengers. Holidays are being booked much later than has been the custom of past years although late
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