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Aviation History
1982
1982 - 1442.PDF
Air transport Braniff dies, and the recriminations begin BRANIFF will never fly again under its own name—and the US air trans port industry is overwhelmingly of the opinion that no airline will be resurrected from its remains. The air line's chairman Howard Putnam ad mitted publicly that "the truth is, Braniff died at 12.01 a.m. on Thursday the 13th. The Braniff name cannot be used again if we succeed in organis ing another airline". But there are grave doubts about Putnam's chances of getting a new airline off the ground at all, say US industry sources. First, it will be ex tremely hard for Putnam and col leagues to generate any public con fidence in the successor to an airline which has already ceased operations once. Secondly, Braniff held operat ing monopolies on only two fairly minor domestic routes when it col lapsed: it had competition in all other markets. And any other airline can move into any market whenever it wants under US deregulation. Thirdly, Braniff lost its remaining international routes immediately the bankruptcy filing was made. The CAB, which was anxious to maintain US presence on these routes, asked the industry at large for new applica tions and other airlines are now operating all the services. American Airlines is flying Braniff's Dallas/Fort Worth-London services, Eastern its DFW-Mexico City route, and Conti nental its Southern USA-Venezuela schedules. Continental has chosen to operate the services from Houston and New Orleans rather than from Dallas/Fort Worth. All these carriers have been given 12 months' tempor ary authority on the routes. Two of the CAB's temporary ex emption operating awards have created controversy. Delta, Pan Am, and TWA all filed for the London route in addition to American. Delta and Pan Am both asked the US Fed eral Court of Appeal to grant a stay of the order giving American the London authority, because they felt their existing facilities at each end of the route gave them an operating edge over American, which has never operated schedules to London. The Appeals Court did not stop American going ahead with the services, but has asked the CAB for "an expedited hearing" into the route case, and has further issued a supplemental order requiring the CAB to explain the basis for its decision. Pan Am has also appealed against the Venezuela award. Its submission in both the London and Venezuela cases has been that "the CAB violated precedent by failing to select carriers which already served those cities". Pan Am then submitted a new ap peal against the CAB's decison to let Eastern buy Braniff's South American route network. According to the air line, it "charged the CAB with blatant use of a double standard in disapproving an agreement between Pan Am and Braniff and subsequently approving a virtually identical agree ment between Eastern and Braniff". The submission ends by saying "the CAB's gross abuse of Pan Am's due process rights demands immediate redress by expediting this appeal". Braniff senior vice-president Sam Coats has also been using strong words recently. Coats claimed that American had been using its own computer reservations system to wipe out reservations from Braniff's sys tem, and that this had been a major cause of Braniff losing business. American "vehemently denies" operating in other than an ethical manner while in competition with Braniff, and justifies the two occa sions on which it admits its computer wiped reservations from the Braniff screens. On one occasion, says Ameri can, the cause was a time-expired ticket, and the other a duplicated booking. American began its five-times-a- week Dallas/Fort Worth-London Gat- wick service on May 20, with the first Boeing 747 touching down just 16hr after route approval was granted by the British CAA, on an 11-month temporary basis. It plans to offer a daily service from June 10. American emphasises the extent of its connections out of DFW—with 230 flights a day to 60 cities—and pre dicts that this will be a major selling point in its head-on battle with BCal on the route, and skirmishes with Delta (Gatwick-Atlanta), Pan Am (Gatwick-Houston), and TWA. Above American Airlines' inaugural Boeing 747 from Dallas touches down at Gatwick at 08-30 on May 20, 55 years to the day after Charles Lindbergh took off on the first solo transatlantic flight Mid-course correction IN our article about the Arab air lines' proposal to move together into London (Heathrow) Airport's new Terminal Four (Flight, May 15, page 1193) there is a statement about the airline El Al which was attributed to Mr Hameed Al-Alawi. Mr Al-Alawi, customer services manager of Gulf Air in Bahrain, has "expressed dis may at a quotation mistakenly attributed to him in an otherwise ex cellent article ... It would not be feasible for Gulf Air as reported to carry out the handling activities of the airline quoted. The anticipated handling activities would be exclusive to the members of AACO." 1368 FLIGHT International, 29 May 1982
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