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Aviation History
1994
1994 - 0053.PDF
FUMD 1 N T E R N A T 1 Editorial Enquiries Editorial Fax Display Advertising Display Advertising Fax Classified Advertising Classified Advertising Fax mr O N A L +44 (81) 652 3842 +44 (81) 652 3840 +44 (81) 652 3315 +44 (81) 652 8981 +44 (81) 661 6373 +44 (81) 652 3279 Telex 892084 REEDBP G Subscriptions +44 (81) 402 8491 fax: +44 (81) 402 8383 Back issues (recent cop es only) +44 (81) 652 3315 Picture Library +44 (81) 652 3427 Flight Directories +44 (707) 665151 USA Newstrade Sales Enquiries +1 (718) 392 7477 LONDON Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS. UK EDITORIAL ENQUIRES Editor Allan Winn Editor's PA Barbara Raine Deputy Editor Forbes Mutch News Editor Andrew Chuter Operations/Safety Editor David Learmount Business Editor Kevin O'Toole +44 (81) 652 3842 +44 (81) 652 3882 •44 (81) 652 3882 +44 (81) 652 3852 +44 (81) 652 3843 +44 (81) 652 3845 •44 (81) 652 3835 Commercial Aviation Editor Kieran Daly -44 (81) 652 3837 Defence Aviation Editor Douglas Barrie +44 (81) 652 3834 Technology/Industry Editor Simon Elliott +44 (81) 652 3838 Data Systems Editor Jenny Long Editorial Assistant Kale Sarslield Production Editor Chris Thornton Design Editor Mike Wells Layout Sub-editor Annabel Goddard Technical Artist Tim Hall Technical Artist David Halchard Technical Artist John Marsden * Spaceflight Correspondent Tim Furniss Photographer (Europe) Mark Wagner Display Advertisement Sales +44 (81) 652 3847 +44 (81) 652 3842 +44 (81) 652 3850 +44 (81) 652 3828 .44 (81) 652 3848 +44 (81) 652 8047 +44 (81) 652 8047 +44 (81) 652 8054 +44 (237) 451756 +44 (81) 944 5225 Group Advertisment Manager Trevor Parker +44 (81) 652 3319 Deputy Advertisement Manager Nick Wilcox +44 (81) 652 3892 Senior Area Manager Robm Gordon Area Manager Mark Janaway Area Manager Janice Lowe Advertisement Production Howard Mason +44 (81) 652 4998 +44 (81) 652 3317 +44 (81) 652 3316 •44 (81) 652 3267 EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST European Editor Julian Moxon Munich Correspondent Andrzej Jeziorski Paris Correspondent Gilbert Sedbon Israel Correspondent Arie Egori Moscow Correspondent Alexander Velovic Sales Director (France) Pierre Mussard Representative (Italy) Romano Ferrario AMERICAS American Editor Graham Warwick Washington Correspondent Ramon Lopez +33 (1) 46 29 47 61 'ax +33 (1) 46 29 47 49 +49 (89) 689 1041 Fax +49 (89) 689 1045 •33 (1) 4825 5261 •972 (3) 967 1155 +7 (095) 393 4717 Fax +7 (095) 393 4717 +33 (1) 46 29 46 29 +39 (2) 58084 302 •1 (404) 587 2927 Fax +1 (404) 594 1534 •1 (703) 836 7443 Fax +1 (703) 836 8344 USA West Coast Correspondent (Los Angeles) Guy Norris Photographer (USA) Craig Schmitman President RBP (USA) Ray Barnes Traffic Manager JoAnn Lapp Vice President US Sales John Tidy Sales Director (Mid West and Canada) Gene Glendinning Sales Director (East Coast) Robed Hancock Business Development Director Sheena Robbins +1 (714) 252 8971 Fax +1 (714) 252 8972 +1 (805) 649 9192 +1 (212) 867 2080 •1 (212) 867 2080 Fax +1 (212) 687 6604 +1 (714) 756 1057 Fax +1 (714) 756 2514 •1 (708) 635 9920 Fax +1 (708) 635 0602 +1 (703) 836 7444 Fax +1 (703) 836 7446 +1 (703) 836 7444 Fax +1 (703) 836 7446 ASIA/PACIFIC Asian Editor (Singapore) John Bailey Australian Correspondent Paul Phelan Sales Director Mike Hancock (Singapore) Account Manager Susan Yeo Regional Representative (Japan) Shoichi Maruyama Publisher Gavin Howe For tuil advertisement information see +65 226 3188 Fax +65 227 1769 •61 (70) 532 791 Fax +61 (70) 533 003 +65 226 3188 +65 226 3188 Fax +65 223 6960 •81 (3) 3234 2161 Fax +81 (3) 3234 1143 +44 (81) 652 3436 inside back cover. FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 12 - 18 January, 1994 COMMENT TAKING THE INITIATIVE A nybody who expected the US Gov ernment's Aviation Initiative to provide a panacea for the airline industry's ills will be disappointed — and justifiably so. All the Initiative can do is improve the environment in which that industry must operate: it is only the airlines themselves which can cure their inherent ills. For any government — and particularly for one which has been bedevilled by wrong-footing and vacillation — the Clinton Administra tion has done a good job in producing this Initiative. It is a re sponse to the recom mendations of its 15- person National Air line Commission, which it set up only in May 1993. That Com mission had a remit to report back to the Government within 90 days and this Initiative includes actions on 49 of the 61 recommendations made by the Commission in that report-back. Many of those actions are timely and sensible: some, indeed, are overdue. The splitting of the USA's air traffic control (ATC) system from the national regulatory body, the Federal Aviation Administration, is a case in point. That is a low-risk strategy for which precedents exist (not the least of which being the privatised New Zealand example), but which could also remove much of the lingering after-taste of the disastrous ATC sackings of the Reagan era. Equally, the Initiative's support for the proposed tightening of the bankruptcy- protection rules comes none too early, pointing as it does to the overhaul of a system which has been abused to the detri ment of both the protected and those from whom they were being protected. The Clinton Administration also deserves some praise for failing to include greater tax benefits in the Initiative — indeed, it could be argued that the $1.4 billion fuel-tax "holiday" which it has conceded is a conces sion loo many. The US airline industry has a poor record in squandering most of the potential savings which aircraft manufactur ers, fuel suppliers and Government regula- The Airline Initiative at least signals that the USA is interested in having such a policy." tors have offered it in the past and there is no reason to suppose that it would not squander again any potential savings offered through tax concessions. The US airline industry (like most of its overseas counterparts) is still inherently a net loss-maker. Its losses owe far more to structural weaknesses, such as overcapacity and high overheads, and the unsound chas ing of market share at almost any price, than to government taxa tion. Some US airlines have addressed these problems and are true profit-earners, but many have not yet done so. Until they do, tax concessions merely continue the support of bad practice. Where the Govern ment has not yet gone far enough is in look ing beyond its own borders over the thorny issue of foreign investment in US air lines. It proposes that the limit of foreign in vestment be raised from 25 to 49%, but only in return for similar concessions from the countries from which investors might emerge. There is no guarantee that the sources of such much-needed investment are countries which have investment opportu nities for US companies in return. Unless the US Government can engineer a universal international GATT-type agreement on for eign investment in airlines, it would be better off making the concession anyway and leading by example, rather than clog ging the industry with yet another set of pointless bilateral confrontations. On balance, however, the Clinton Admin istration has done well: its Airline Initiative might not be a substitute for a full-blown civil aviation policy, but it at least signals that the USA is interested in having such a policy — a far cry from the attitudes of other governments, notably that of the UK. What the Clinton Administration has yet to achieve is the convincing of the USA's airlines that they, too, should have a policy: that of assuming for themselves the respon sibility of making profits (especially in their protected home market) instead of relying on their Government's own Initiative to do it for them. •
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