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Aviation History
1982
1982 - 1810.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT UK airlines to serve Falkland*? LONDON An already existing and a proposed British carrier are showing strong interest in serving the Falkland Islands on a regular basis following the cessation of hostilities. The rapidly diversifying UK carrier British Air Fer ries was the first to become interested in a Falkland Is lands service. The airline— which owns 19 Vickers Vis counts and several Handley Page Heralds, which it uses for charter work and lease contracts all over the world —applied to the UK Civil Aviation Authority to oper ate "not more than two daily services" between Port Stanley and Punta Arenas in Chile from October 1. BAF's sales manager Mike Kay tells Flight that the air line would base two Vis counts at Port Stanley. BAF believes that there is a good deal of potential for trade between the Falklands and Chile. BAF thinks that the daily Port Stanley-Punta Arenas run would be "a cost-effec tive, commercially sound operation". There will be a lot of development—includ ing oilfield exploitation—in the Islands over the next three years, Kay says, and with a British forces garrison of at least 2,000 based there, there may be a considerable amount of freight, medical evacuation, and troop-carry ing work for the airline as well as local trade develop ment and charter work. The airline says it is not relying on a Ministry of De fence contract to make the service viable, but is looking for "a realistic subsidy" from the MoD in terms of a regu lar commitment for seats and/or cargo space: it says the MoD has expressed in terest in the proposed ser vice. BAF has now lined up the Falkland Islands Company as its general services agent at Port Stanley and Chilean flag carrier LAN-Chile as its GSA at Punta Arenas. Kay notes that LAN-Chile is hop- IwlWPlittiP!1 McDonnell Douglas says that now, less than two years after its entry into airline service, the DC-9 Super 80 makes more than 500 flights a day for 16 airlines, and has a despatch reliability of over 99 per cent ing to extend its Paris ser vices on to London later this year. The Falklands Islands Company has guaranteed BAF supplies of avtur at Port Stanley and hotel ac commodation for its crews. A new company known as British Atlantic Airways has applied for CAA permission to operate a weekly London Gatwick-Port Stanley return service using a DC-10-30, routeing both ways via Ascension Island for fuel and technical stops. The new company estimates a jour ney time of 16 hours for the 8,000 mile one-way trip. British Atlantic Airways has been formed by lawyer Randolph Fields and ex- Laker operations manager Capt Alan Hellary. Fields has visited McDonnell Doug las with the intention of try ing to lease one of the ex- Laker DC-10-30s now stored at Yuma in Arizona. The lynchpin of the British At lantic Airways plan would be to obtain a deal from MDC and the US Eximbank (the co-owners of the air craft) to pay hire charges only for the hours actually flown. "They have been fitted out to CAA certification stan dards, so a British airline could operate one right away, whereas it would be an expensive process con verting them to FAA stan dards," points out Hellary. "There isn't much prospect of them doing anything else in the near future: they'll probably just sit in the desert for the next couple of years." British Atlantic's plan seems rather more depen dent on MoD support than does BAF's, although it has proposed fares considerably lower than British Caledon ian's pre-iuvasion fares to Buenos Aires. Hellary says that British Atlantic has car ried out extensive costing and thinks the service could uphold 150 seats a week, plus cargo plus mail. The MoD "seems reasonably in terested" in the idea, he says. Ultimately British Atlantic's proposal depends on it ob taining a UK operator's li cence. This will require proof of financial and operating fit ness. Although British Atlan tic says it can draw on the resources of a consortium of British investors, it plans to raise a proportion of its equity by public subscription. British Atlantic has no con crete plans for other ser vices at the moment, and this will probably count against it. And so far it has not con sidered logistic arrangements nearly as fully as has BAF. The two companies will not object to each other's li cence application. Capt Hell ary believes the two services could co-exist and comple ment each other. BAF's Mike Kay expresses the doubts of others in the industry as to the British Atlantic proposal by saying "Why should we object? We'd only need to object for the first week of their operation. It wouldn't matter after that." Accidents... Air-India Boeing 707 (VT- DJJ) skidded on landing at Bombay Airport during a monsoon at 4.30 a.m. on June 22. The aircraft over ran the end of the runway, hit a ditch and the hull broke in two. This accident killed two of the aircrew and 17 of the passengers. A T a b a Airlines FH.227B (PT-LBV) with 44 persons on board hit an illumination mast at Tabatinga Airport (north-west Brazil) and crashed next to the airport killing all on board. This happened in the morning of June 12, and airport person nel allege that the weather and visibility was too bad for the aircraft to have com pleted a landing safely. Brazilian domestic carrier VASP has suffered two seri ous accidents within the last two months, one of them the most serious in Brazil's avi ation history. On June 8 a Boeing 7 27 (PP-SBK) crashed into a 2,500ft hill while on approach to Pinto Martins Airport, Fortaleza, en route from Sao Paulo. All 137 people on board died. The aircraft was reported to have hit the wooded high ground 5 n.m. away from the airport while on approach in heavy rain at three o'clock in the morning. The other VASP accident, in which two people died, hap pened on the evening of May 24. A Boeing 737 landed very heavily in severe rain at Brazilia and broke in half. 4 FLIGHT International, 3 July 1982
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