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Aviation History
1966
1966 - 1219.PDF
696 FLIGHT international, 28 April 1966 South African Airways Boeing 707-320s. The airline's colours are blue, orange and white Airline Profile NUMBER TWENTY-SIX IN THE SERIES SOUTH AFRICAN AIRWAYS BY DARYL MAY SOUTH Africa's Economy (you use a capital E) is rivalledonly by the West German and Japanese in the rapidity ofits post-war growth. Consider these pointers: Gross national product has in real terms been bounding up for a long time at about 7 per cent a year. In the last ten years exports have more than trebled, and foreign investment has shown the world's confidence by topping £1,500 million. Today, per capita ownership of motor vehicles is 50 per cent higher than the European average while, in a different sense, economic health is also demonstrated by the fact that South Africa is one of only four or five countries in the world which have never needed US aid. To a nation's economic prosperity, its transport system is both chicken and egg. First a prosperous nation demands the best in transportation: in the last ten years, South African wealth has led to the virtual doubling of tourist traffic abroad. Together with the trebling of foreign trade, this has inspired better roads (sometimes reckoned the world's third best), better railways (now no longer the world's worst), an expanded merchant fleet—and a much enlarged airline. In converse, an efficient transportation system leads to effi- cient industry and so to prosperity, to the extent that some- times—particularly in undeveloped countries—the origins of progress in transportation and the economy are as inseparable as the origins of the chicken and the egg. The South African Government has recognised the impor- tance of transport in the economy by continuing to hold a virtual transport monopoly. South African Railways & Har- bours—which also controls the airline, runs ships and manages oil pipelines—is a giant £300 million a year concern and the nation's largest single employer. Such an organisation (as this writer remarked in Flight for September 21, 1961, page 474) sometimes either serves the public and runs at a loss, or does not serve the public and still runs at a loss. The performance of SAR&H, however, is a lesson against doctrinaire judgment, for the organisation does succeed is serving the public and making a reasonable profit. And there! are benefits in the monopoly, such as that allowing each r"" senger by air an additional 601b free baggage allowance by i Origins of South African Airways did not, however, inside SAR&H. In 1929 the privately owned Union Airway began the nation's first regular commercial services and conj tinued until 1934 when, unable to keep pace with tra* demand, SAR&H acquired them. In 1935 South West Afirw Airways were also taken over, and services expanded so ma by 1939 the new South African Airways served all najo centres and also Mozambique, Rhodesia, South West and Angola. \t v li, Advent of the war put a stop to operations. 'On May % 1940, all commercial services were suspended and the nee 18 Junkers Ju86s transferred to the Air Force for conwnr to bombers; they were accompanied by crews and grown ^ sonnel. The 28 Lockheed Lodestars, ordered earlier, w appropriated as soon as they arrived. . In 1944 six of these Lodestars were returned ana began again virtually from scratch. In 1945 the airtac maugj rated the Springbok Service to Europe with Avro yon . 12 passengers and two-and-a-half days. It also tow of several DC-4 Skymasters and DC-3s, and with these oF in 1946 the first non-stop service between Johannesou B Cape Town (800 miles). vikine but SAA used briefly both the Dove and th* ™$'came next step forward came in 1950, when pressurisat.on the Springbok Service with L.749A Consolations ^ the Skymasters which had themselves replaced u ^ SAA entered the jet era in 1952, ^ond only to ^ ^ leasing Comet Is from the corporation, ^ £yy crash* short-lived: on April 8, 1952, SAA-crewed ^t^ waS th into the Bay of Naples after structural tai ure. ^ first and (to date) only time SAA ever kiliea
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