FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1980
1980 - 0074.PDF
68 FLIGHT International, 12 January 1980 BA ground staff vote to strike BRITISH Airways ground engineers have voted overwhelmingly to strike today (January 10) in support-of their 25 per cent pay claim. BA offered 12 per cent to all ground staff, which has been increased to 14*2 per cent for engineers and maintenance workers. Any increase must be coupled with productivity improve ments, the airline says. Talks continue and management statements imply that the door to further increases is not closed, provided that considerable productivity improvement can be agreed. Management is concerned at the considerable potential for disruption of operations. Although engineers propose a series of "one-day" strikes, stoppages by different shifts/sections will take place between 6.30 a.m. today and 2.30 p.m. on Saturday. BA's offer to all ground staff, involving a total of nine unions. The engineers are the only section so far to have proposed striking. The air- Sir Giles Guthrie SIR GILES Guthrie, the merchant banker, brought in to British Overseas Airways Corporation as chairman and chief executive in 1964, has died. He was 63. Although he had many diverse business activities, Guthrie enjoyed a long and active interest in aviation. In 1936, while a Cambridge under graduate, he won the King's Cup Air Race with Charles Gardner in a Perci- val Vega Gull. He won the Ports mouth to Johannesburg race with C. W. A. Scott in the same year. Before the Second World War he worked with (the then) British Air ways in Warsaw. Military service found Guthrie in the Fleet Air Arm. Following his father's death in 1945, he looked after family financial interests, while still flying for sport and pleasure. In 1959 he joined the British Euro pean Airways Board, five years later becoming a member of the Inter national Air Transport Association executive committee and the Air Registration Board. Along with his BOAC chairmanship he relinquished these posts in 1968. When Guthrie was appointed to BOAC, the airline was £85 million in the red. He was not interested in "flying the flag" but set about pruning routes and cancelling new aircraft. A quarter of the executive staff was axed, along with 3 500 lower paid workers. Pilot strength was cut to 900; a new computer dispensed with 60 teleprinter operators. The overhaul left the airline leaner but fitter to enter the widebody era. In 1969 Guthrie set up Air Trans port Insurance in. Bermuda. His last years were spent on the island of Jersey. line's negotiating position is made more difficult by British Caledonian's offer to its 4,500 ground staff of a basic 15 per cent, with cost-of-living index linking and no productivity increase requirements. B.CAL says that it has made this offer to cut out the "time-consuming confrontations" caused by annual pay talks. The Aerospatiale TB30 Epsilon cruised at medium level during its first flight (see Flight last week, page 4). Of interest is the inclusion of ejection seats as standard 747 pylon failure A spokesman for the UK Depart ment of Trade's Accidents Investiga tion Branch confirms that the partial failure of a Boeing 747 engine pylon on landing at Heathrow (see Air Transport, page 72) was not attribut able to a heavy landing. The vertical speed, assessed from successive radio- altimeter readings, was about 10ft a second, which is well within "normal" parameters. It is confirmed that neither engine nor wingtip touched the ground at any stage during the landing, but that the engine cowling touched the ground after the aircraft had taxied off the runway. */,C#*.w, Keith, Sisson and Foulkes honoured SIR Kenneth Keith, retiring chairman of Rolls-Royce, receives a life peerage, and CAA chairman Nigel Foulkes and Smiths Industries executive chair man Roy Sisson are knighted in the British Prime Minister's New Year Honours List; Harrier test pilot John Farley (OBE) and chief inspector of accidents Bill Tench (CBE) are also honoured. The list includes: Baroness—Jean Barker (Air Trans port Users' Committee). Knight—Robert Clayton (technical director,'GEC). Knight Bachelor (Australia)—Richard Law-Smith (for service to aviation, commerce and industry). KCB—Acting Air Marshal Thomas Kennedy. CB—AVMs Peter Bairsto, Geoffrey Cloutman, Peter Latham, and Darrell Lloyd; John Alvey (deputy controller, R&D Establishments and Research, and RAF Chief Scientist, MoD). CBE—Arthur Walsh (Marconi Space and Defence Systems). OBE—Frank Baker (Air Cadet Coun cil). MBE—Ronald Brown (recently BAe Warton). A British Cargo DCS and a USAF C-I4I were at Gatwick during operations to airlift equipment to Rhodesia in support of British troops. The airline begins commercial services between London and Salisbury this month
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
