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Aviation History
1983
1983 - 2047.PDF
Healthy PIA plans for growth BOMBAY Pakistan International Airlines has increased its profitability by 500 per cent in less than two years, accord ing to PIA managing director Air ViceMarshal Wiqar Azar. In the financial year ending March 31, 1983, PIA re ported a Rs433 million (£22 million) net profit, compared with an £11 million net income in 1981-1982. Its profit target for 1983-1984 is £31 million. AVM Wiqar Azar said that the increase in profitability last year was largely due to a £20 million or 5-2 per cent increase in revenue over the previous year. But he pointed out that while the carrier's profitability last year was the highest in PIA's history, the airline needed to be further improved for "self-sustaining financial operations and re ducing dependence on fin ancing through borrowings". Speaking in Bombay, Wiqar Azar said that Pakistan International plans to spend between $400 million and $500 million over the next five years on new aircraft in keeping with passenger and cargo traffic growth. PIA has already spent £16 • 3 million in the past year to improve its ground passenger handling, modern ising its motor transport fleet and re-equipping and up grading catering facilities. Wiqar Azar said that the airline would like to increase its service to New Delhi and Bombay, and it would also like to fly to more desti nations in India with the acquisition of new aircraft. PIA's services to India are doing "remarkably well", he noted, with load factors exceeding 70 per cent. Transatlantic fare agreement renewed WASHINGTON ~ Fourteen European aviation authorities and the US Civil Aeronautics Board have agreed to renew the US-Ecac transatlantic fare agreement. It has now been in effect for 15 months. Under the latest renewal, automatic approval will be given to North Atlantic fares filed before April 30, 1984, and within agreed pricing zones. The fares will be applicable until October 31 next year. The European countries participating in the agree ment are Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, West Germany, Greece, Eire, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and Jugoslavia. Aer Arann branches out SHANNON ~ Aer Arann, a Republic of Ireland operator which pro vides daily flights between Galway and the remote Aran Islands with two Britten-Norman Islanders, is now offering scheduled services between Shannon and Dublin. The airline has leased an 18-seat Bandeirante from Euroair for the 50min service. Aer Arann is offering three schedules Monday to Friday on the route, with timings arranged to attract business traffic between the capital and the rapidly developing industrial community in Shannon. At the weekend the aircraft is available for char ter work within the Republic or to the UK. A spokesman for Aer Arann says that the service is just one part of the airline's expansion programme. The airline has licences for routes from Shannon to Belfast and Manchester and from Shan non through Cork to Bristol and Cardiff. He says that the Manchester service could start up in April next year. The airline is currently looking at the possibility of purchasing its own aircraft, possibly a Bandeirante or a type similar in size. The first Boeing 747- 200 Combi for CAAC moves through the final assembly line at Boeing's Everett, Washington, plant. The combination pas senger/cargo aircraft is scheduled for delivery in December AIR TRANSPORT SAFETY UPDATE US Federal Aviation Admin istration chief Lynn Helms says that his agency is going as fast as it can go in upgrading the fire safety rules. Because there are "economic trade-offs" to air safety, the FAA must take into account the views of the airline industry as well as those of other interested parties in issuing new safety rules, Mr Helms told a gener ally critical House investi gations and oversight subcommittee. Helms said that it could be several years before substan tially improved fabrics and other fire retardant materials are installed on airliners. Before a regulation requiring airlines to install particular materials is issued, extensive research must be done, he said. Citing the continuing controversy over the use of fire-retardant materials, Helms said that if the agency had bowed to pressure and forced the use of some of the early fabrics developed it would have been extremely expensive for the airlines, since the fabrics in question wore out quickly and would have had to be replaced frequently. The cost to the airlines would have been upwards of $400 million a year, which they would have had to pay for with massive fare increases. Recently the FAA issued a notice of proposed rule making on fire retardant cabin fabrics, and the indus try has already come to the agency with more than 190 new materials to be tested. According to Helms, 90 have already passed the agency's criteria and Boeing is now doing wear tests on the most promising of them. rFLIGHT International, 12 November 1983 People Robert Monroe has been appointed city manager London for People Express. Monroe succeeds Franciska Maekiewicz, who has been promoted to city manager at PE's headquarters at Newark International Airport. G. D. "Gert" van der Veer has been appointed chief executive of South African Airways. He succeeds Frans Swarts, who has retired. 1271
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