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Aviation History
1983
1983 - 0075.PDF
The Zagreb report: what happened? SIR—I recently purchased a copy of Zagreb 14 cleared to Collide, and I noticed that the authors, in a footnote, indicated that A.AR 5/77, the report or, the September 10, 1976, collision, was not for publication. A couple of days later I called at HMSO Birmingham, where they inspected their published list of ARs for 1977 and found no record of the Trident DC-9 accident report. I subsequently wrote twice to HMSO London and phoned once, eventually receiving a standard letter with the added typewritten words "This report was cancelled and was not issued for publication". Can the CAA explain:— 1 Why it was withdrawn after publication 2 Why now, after more than six years has passed, this report is still not available to the general public, investigators, researchers, or historians. R. J. MacCORMACK Queens Head Queen Street Lichfield Staffs BA-a misreading of history? SIR—A random but fairly representative selection of ti tles of articles which ap peared in your journal during 1982 presents a clear picture ""of the precarious financial position of international civil air transport: "Airline finance predictions stay gloomy" (February 15) "US airlines threaten order cancellations" (April 10) "Boeing profits reflect soft market" (May 8) "BCal warns that others will follow Braniff' (June 12) "Crisis management in the airlines" (Editorial, August 7) "The Cauldron" (Editorial, August 28) FLIGHT International, 8 January 1983 From these and other arti cles in the same vein it is obvious that you, Sir, are well aware of the combined impact which the recession and deregulation has had upon airlines and aircraft manufacturers. It was therefore surprising that, in your editorial of Oc tober 30, "A state airline has problems", which reviewed the delayed 1981-82 Annual Report of British Airways, you advocated that unless the airline achieves what few other airlines appear capable of doing, i.e. make a profit, its demise was to be wel comed: "It is an attractive proposi tion: British Airways without taxpayers' support. Either it turns a profit or it folds, and either could be preferable to running it as a permanent social service." Should it fold, to use your words, "buyers would snap up greedily all the parts that deserve to survive . . .". What a pleasant prospect you hold for the present 40,000 British Airways staff and the numerous tens of thousands of people em ployed elsewhere who depend upon the airline for their livelihood. My organisation would like additional time to study the British Airways accounts before making comments upon them. However, the line of argument that you are supporting, namely that the especially poor present state of the airline is largely due to wrong decisions taken in the recent past, cannot go unchallenged. Your editorial states that the airline was too big in 1978, and this must be read as a contention that staff numbers should have been cut drastically following the BOAC/BEA merger in 1974. As you may be aware, the trades unions within British Airways fought tenaciously against any moves towards enforcing redundancies, and there were good reasons for this approach. One can ascertain that af ter the oil crisis in 1973-74, which was almost concurrent with the formation of British Airways, expansion appeared to be the order of the day. For example, in the airline's Report to Employees 1976-77 the opening headline read, "£51 million turnround—a loss of £16 million turned into a profit of £35 million". Within the report the then Chairman of British Air ways, Sir Frank McFadzean, a person not renowned for any false praise for the per sonnel of any nationalised industry, stated, "The swing is substantial by any stan dard and reflects great credit on all the staff who made this result possible". By the 1978-79 period, when you ar gue that cuts should have been made, profits had risen to £77 million, and the num ber of passengers carried had increased by 18 per cent over the previous year. Despite these im provements, all of the re ports of the late 1970s stated that the rate of profit in re lation to capital invested had to be improved and effi ciency stepped up to meet the growing competition. Was it so wrong to antici pate that any slack would be taken up in the expansion of demand that was expected? Obviously, an easy answer is to say yes, but instead of pontificating with all the benefits of hindsight one must turn back to the situ ation as it was seen at the time. In its seven year plan, adopted in 1979, British Air ways expected that by 1986 it would "be carrying rather over 30 million passengers a year against about 16 million today". Demand was rising, but if the airline was to win its share of increased pas senger numbers and consign ments of cargo it had to modernise its fleet with re gard to new technology, fuel consumption, and noise. Otherwise, how could it hope to compete with the more ef ficient aeroplanes of other airlines? The decision was therefore made to invest £2,400 million over the seven year period. £1,500 million was to be derived from the airline's own profits, of which £950 million would be used "replacing obsolete aircraft". If British Airways failed to allow for the alternative fall in demand (it carried only 154 million passengers 1981/82), to anticipate an other round of drastic fuel price increases, to spot the hazards of increased interest charges and adequately to assess the ravages of deregu lation, it was in good com pany. Your own reports, LETTERS which have been noted, sup port this contention. But suppose for one mo ment that the world econ omy had expanded, but Brit ish Airways had contracted. One can envisage some of the headlines of articles that would have appeared in Flight:- "State airline's fleet proves hopelessly outdated and inadequate" "BA's staff are technically backward" "BA's fuel bills rise while those of other airlines fall" "BA's aircraft grounded as do not comply to Govern ment Legislation in Noise Level" And so on, and so on. BATUC is not an or ganisation to make excuses for British Airways manage ment, and we have had many sharp differences with them regarding the changing situ ation. However, BATUC be lieves in an efficient state- owned airline which serves the people and industry while safeguarding the inter ests of its staff. Any moves to fragment the airline's services and sell them off piecemeal to private ownership should be resisted, and with this in mind we feel that any drawing of wrong conclusions which stem from a fallacious read ing of history must be coun- C. VARNDELL Chairman British Airways Trade Union Council 81 New Road Harlington Hayes Middlesex WHAT'S ON January 12 London Society of Air- Britain: Annual aviation films evening—Fokker BV Schiphol films; Hol- born Central Library, 32-38, Theobalds Road, London WC1; contact Charles Oman; tel 044483 317. January 18 RAeS Astronautics and Guided Flight Section: All-day Sym posium: Testing for Space and Weapon Products; details from section secretary, 4 Hamilton Place, London W1. January 19 RAeS Air Transport Group: Afternoon Symposium: Fleet planning—principles and methods; de tails from group secretary, 4 Hamilton Place, London W1, January 20 RAeS Test Pilots' Group: ADV Tornado, by J. D. Eagles, BAe Warton; 4 Hamilton Place, London W1; 7 p.m. January 25 RAeS Historical Group: Rail way Air Services, by John King; 4 Ham ilton Place, London W1; 7 p.m. 95
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