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Aviation History
1984
1984 - 0003.PDF
WORLD NEWS Concorde fares anger Pan Am WASHINGTON D.C. Pan American has accused the British Government of unfairly subsidising air fares on Concorde, and has urged the US Civil Aeronautics Board to issue a "show cause" order requiring British Airways to raise its supersonic fares from London to New York and Washington. The US carrier claims that the Government is "flagrantly protecting its flag carrier" by allowing BA to set Concorde fares substantially below cost and virtually on a par with first class on subsonic aircraft. The result, says Pan Am, is a classic example of capacity dumping which has caused a significant amount of first-class traffic to be diverted from US flag carriers to British Airways. "Presently Concorde flights between Britain and the USA cost us more than $30 million a year in diversions from first class service," Pan Am claims. The US carrier alleges that the supersonic service is "cream ing off too much" of its lucrative first class business. "When a carrier encroaches on our fare levels you have to retaliate somehow," a Pan Am spokesman said. A return London-New York fare on Concorde is £2,399, compared with a subsonic first class return of £1,986. London-Washington return on the supersonic airliner is £2,426, while the subsonic return fare is £2,258. Pan Am wants to see a fare differential of 50 per cent between Concorde and subsonic fares. In return for subsidising some support costs the British Government takes about 80 per cent of Concorde profits. In April, however, British Airways is due to take over complete responsibility for Concorde support—meaning that it will pay cost price for spares, and will cover fatigue testing expenses until tests are complete. Invincible is not LONDON The planned February visit to Japan of HMS Invincible has been cancelled because the UK Ministry of Defence will not assure Japan that the ship does not carry nuclear weap ons. Late last year Invincible was turned away by Australia for the same reason and will now be repaired in Singapore. The Royal Navy's tour of New Zealand was cut short after one of Invincible's propeller shafts developed bearing trouble, which in turn caused vibration. Sydney was the nearest port with repair facilities. Australia sought assurance that Invincible was not carry ing nuclear weapons before allowing her to dock in Sydney for repairs. The Royal Navy stuck to Ministry of Defence policy in neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons in any particular installation. The Australians then refused entry. Flight understands that Invincible's anti-submarine armament includes air-deliv ered nuclear depth charges and torpedoes. Full speed ahead on Uosat B GUILDFORD Nasa has confirmed that it will fly the University of Surrey's second scientific and amateur radio satellite, Uosat B, on March 1 this year. Uosat B will fly on the same Delta 3920 that launches Nasa's Landsat D-prime (Landsat 5) Earth-observation satellite, thanks to the US agency's offer of a free piggy-back ride. The Delta is to be launched from Vandenberg AFB, Cali fornia, and will place Uosat B in a 700km-high, Sun- synchronous orbit. The craft's payload will comprise three geiger counters supplied by the Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, a charge-coupled device to provide pictures of Earth, a synthesised speech experiment, a digital commu nications experiment supplied by Amsat in the USA and Canada, and a space-dust experiment from the Univer sity of Kent. Newly-named Jetstream International Airlines of Pennsylvania has received the first two of six Jetstream 31s The carrier was previously known as Vee Neat Airlines lOliEllifSlI •P / FLIGHT INTERNATIONA L NEXT WEEK To the envy of many of its competitors, Singapore Airlines has always shown a profit. David Learmount looks at the reasons for its continuing success and high reputation. The Asia-Pacific region is currently one of the world's biggest markets for new airliners. The ex pansion of Asia-Pacific's air transport industry is analysed by Peter Middleton. All of the major rockets and upper stages which are commercially available for putting satellites into orbit are listed and described in our Satellite Launcher directory, compiled by David Velupillai. FLIGHT International, 7 January 1984
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