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Aviation History
1971
1971 - 1026.PDF
FLIGHT International, 24 June 1971 913 AIR TRANSPORT IATA WARNS GOVERNMENTS ATTENTION was drawn to the increasing impact of the non-scheduled airlines on the profitability of the scheduled airlines by the director-general of lata, Mr Knut Hammar skjold, addressing the Icao Assembly in Vienna last week. Mr Hammarskjold pointed out that non-Iata charter traffic increased at an average rate of 58-1 per cent between 1964 and 1970, compared with 15-3 per cent for the scheduled airlines. The non-Iata share of North Atlantic traffic, he said, increased from 3 per cent in 1964 to 18 per cent in 1970. "This added capacity," he said, "comes at the very moment when scheduled international airlines are themselves in a re-equipment phase on a new aircraft-generation cycle. . . . When the airlines committed themselves to this re-cycle they based their decisions on traffic forecasts and made their judgments many years ahead. They knew that they had to anticipate uncertainties and outside forces over which they had no control. What they did not know was that Government action would bring about a change in the world-wide basic policies within which they have made their decision." Scheduled services, said Mr Hammarskjold, had been built up on the foundation of the Chicago Convention and on bilateral agreements. Unless governments exercised dis cretion in this area, he warned, the public-service carriers would not be able to maintain satisfactory load factors and would be prevented from continuing the downward price trend—"which has been unprecedented in any public- service industry." lata conferences, he said, were meetings not of a select club but of an association with a mandate from governments to work out fares and rates in the first in stance—and to do so under government supervision. Speaking of the various pressures to which governments were subject, Mr Hammarskjold said it was not surprising that there had been a lack of co-ordination between governments and sometimes between various agencies in the same government. "Regrettably on occasion they have failed to follow their own recommendations made within Icao in respect to important matters such as charges and facilitation. They have permitted monopolistic situations to exist in airports. . . . "Admittedly scheduled airlines are not without blame. They cannot resist the temptation to acquire the most modern technical equipment. Their unanimity rule for the traffic conferences at times acts as a straight jacket and their inevitable compromises may not always produce the optimum results. Despite careful planning, the industry may not have fully appreciated trends and may not always have reconciled demands for new types of services with its traditional obligation to provide scheduled services throughout the world." V/STOL IS THE TASK THE development of requirements for Stol and Vtol aircraft is now one of the two most important projects facing the British Air Registration Board, the board says in its annual report, published last week. "The most important civil project for the ARB is still Concorde," writes Lord Kings Norton, chairman of the ARB Council. "Though second to it in urgency, of equal importance from the airworthiness point of view is the development of requirements for Stol and Vtol aircraft, in which it is assumed that this country will exploit its lead." The past year, says Lord Kings Norton, has held more threats to the immediate and long-term prospects of constructors and operators than any year since the war. "I believe that one basic reason is that the technical brilliance of aviation achievement has proved to be its own worst enemy." With the present scale of aviation projects and the investment required, says Lord Kings Norton, "the prospects of European countries are clearly enhanced by collaboration." One of the more significant events in the ARB's own work, says the report, is the effort by authorities and constructors in a number of European countries to develop jointly a single set of airworthiness requirements. The task is a major one, the report comments, but progress has been encouraging. Dealing with international reciprocity on airworthiness standards, Lord Kings Norton says that there is clearly a strong case for aligning requirements to avoid unnecessary differences—"and the ARB puts in a great deal of effort to this end." But it is, he says, of fundamental importance to air safety that more than one authority in the world should be competent to generate and consider the validity of airworthiness requirements. To do this requires experience of working with an industry. • The DC-8-63 is now acceptable for British certification, says the ARB, subject to a few changes to comply with UK special conditions. The ARB has also completed a pre liminary general assessment of earlier DC-8 models in case certification should be requested. A recent picture of the new wide-body jet terminal (nearest the camera), at Kai Tak Airport, Hong Kong with a 747 of Pan American docked. Northwest 747s also use the airport on trans-Pacific services
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