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Aviation History
1985
1985 - 0007.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT Lorenzo hits out atCRS NEW YORK Continental Airlines chair man Frank Lorenzo has publicly attacked airline computer reservation systems, labelling them "a dangerous threat to competition, deregulation, and the consumer", and has called on the US Government to force airlines to stop controlling them. Lorenzo firmly believes that if ownership of the reservation systems is placed in the hands of a company rather than an airline, the bias problem will cease and all carriers will be placed on an equal footing. Speaking recently at the Wings Club in New York, Lorenzo warned: "The most serious current private threat to competition arises out of the fact that two of the USA's largest airlines, American and United, each own the two dominant computer reserva tions systems. For individual airlines to compete in price and service is a futile act unless the travelling public finds out what prices and service they offer. Yet the public finds out mostly through t*avel agents, and the travel agents find out mainly through their computers." Lorenzo said that the CAB's attempts to cure the anti competitive problems in August last year, when it issued regulations that forbade bias in the primary display and prohibited tying arrangements in the sale of CRS, have failed. "The consumer is still being sold air transport through CRSs designed to distort his or her travel choice. In short, the consumer is not told the cheapest price or the most convenient service by the computer. "The only solution to this problem is the direct anti-trust remedy of divestiture." Lorenzo has yet to add his name to the lawsuit filed by 11 US airlines alleging that American and United have achieved monopoly status in the booking of airline seats by travelling agents through their Sabre and Apollo CRS. FLIGHT International, 5 January 1985 3 A310-300 final assembly begins Final assembly of the first A310-300 has begun in Toulouse. The -300 is due to make its first flight in summer 1985 and will enter commercial service in December. Highland gets its hearing LONDON Virgin Atlantic founder Rand olph Fields' projected new airline, Highland Express, will have its route licence applica tions heard next week by the UK Civil Aviation Authority. Highland's applications are for Birmingham-Prestwick, Stansted-Prestwick, Prest- wick-Maastricht, Prestwick- New York Newark, Prest- wick-Toronto, and Stansted- Maastricht. The airline's aim is to provide cheap scheduled transatlantic travel to regional markets, where it is not imme diately available now. But Fields recognises that, for the westbound flights, none of the individual departure airports could provide enough traffic on its own; so every flight calls at Highland's Prestwick hub to pick up more passengers and, on some of the schedules, to allow passengers to walk direct from one TriStar to another for onward travel. The Prestwick hubbing system is one of the keys, Fields says, to the anticipated success of the venture. Prestwick is cheap, uncrowded, has good year-round operational weather, and hubbing enables maximum efficiency in air frame usage for the three- TriStar fleet. All schedules are planned as one-stop-only through Prestwick. Fields says that he is 50 per cent of the way to raising the capital needed for start-up, and is appealing to the C AA to accept that he can raise the rest easily when he can tell poten tial investors that his airline has actually been licensed. That is what happened with Virgin Atlantic, he argues. Latest results from the 20-member Association of European Airlines have indi cated a slow-down in recent growth in terms of both passengers and freight carried. Within Europe, October 1984 traffic picked up by 7 per cent, just slightly below the overall summer result, but traffic on the North Atlantic registered a mere 3 per cent increase. This represented a 4 per cent reduction in total international traffic level growth in one month, compared with a 7 per cent reduction in traffic level growth during the April- October season. Latest freight figures are disappointing, the AEA admits. In October freight carried increased by 8 per cent—the lowest rate of growth the AEA has recorded since May 1983. Most areas reflected this reduction, the AEA reported, with the exception of Africa, which picked up after a poor summer. American Central will try again IOWA ~ US Bandeirante operator American Central, grounded early last month for more than 20 safety violations, says it wants to start flying again early this year. The Waterloo, Iowa-based airline will shortly announce a new management team, which it hopes will satisfy the Federal Aviation Adminis tration that it is fit to have its licence back. Employees at American Central agreed that there had been lapses in management, and that the FAA was correct in grounding the airline. Transatlantic TWA In last week's issue, page 1669, two misplaced commas multiplied by ten the fuel cost of flying airliners across the Atlantic. The correct TWA fuel cost estimate of flying a 747 St Louis-Paris is £56,420, and the cost of flying a 767 on the same route is $30,340.
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