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Aviation History
1976
1976 - 2127.PDF
FLIGHT International, 25 September 1976 959 AIR TRANSPORT ANOTHER US SUPPLEMENTAL MERGER? IN the wake of the merger between Trans International Airlines and Saturn Airways—currently expected to be concluded on October 2—comes the news that another big US supplemental and a specialised cargo operator are contemplating a join-up. Alaska International Industries and Overseas National Airways announced last week that they had reached a "tentative agreement in principle" whereby ONA would be acquired by Alaska International Industries. ONA would merge with Alaska International Air. a wholly owned subsidiary of Alaska International Industries. The preliminary agreement is still subject to the execution and delivery of a formal accord, and to approval by the directors and shareholders of both concerns. Alaska International Industries must provide ONA with assurances on the financing of the acquisition within 90 days. The merger also depends on the approval of the bankers of both concerns. The US Civil Aeronautics Board and the Alaska Trans portation Commission will also have to give their assent before the merger can be completed. The two firms state that "the merger may require the approval of the President of the United States, because it involves international aviation rights." It may be premature to suggest a date for the consum mation of the AIA/ONA merger. Completion of the TIA/ Saturn deal has taken two years, partly as a result of delays in obtaining approval from the various US Govern ment Departments—Justice, State and Transportation— which felt that their interests were involved. ONA operates four DC-9s and 18 McDonnell Douglas DC-8s of various marks. Two DC-10-30s are on order to replace the two DC-lOs written off last year. AIA has ten Lockheed L-lOOs, operated on oil-support work in Alaska and on charters throughout the world. AIR CANADA ORDERED TO GO BILINGUAL? MONTREAL'S Superior Court earlier this month instructed Air Canada to translate all its flight manuals into French and to allow French as the working language on the flight deck. The airline was also ordered not to prevent its pilots from using French in R/T conversation with Air Canada employees on the ground, although the use of French for anything other than VFR air traffic control is currently banned pending the results of an inquiry into the safety of bilingual ATC. The Superior Court judgment followed a suit brought against the airline by a Liberal politician and a French- speaking Air Canada captain, backed by at least 40 other Air Canada pilots. They told the court that because Air Canada flight manuals were available only in English the airline was contravening the Official Languages Act, which gives French equal status to English. A recent amendment to the airline's main flight operations manual, which stated that all working flight-deck conversations should be con ducted in a language "compatible with flight-deck equip ment and lexicons," was also declared illegal as long as the manuals were in English only. Air Canada has been given two years to translate all its manuals and to implement the decision of the court. The airline has argued that it would be "virtually impossible" to translate all the flight manuals, and is to contest the decision in the Quebec Appeal Court. • The Provincial Government: in Quebec is to assist French- speaking air traffic controllers in their fight against English-only ATC in Quebec. The Quebec controllers' trade association has submitted a petition against the Federal ban on French in ATC to the Federal Court in Ottawa. The association which represents many of the French- speaking controllers, pilots and other aviation workers, the Gens de VAir, is refusing to co-operate with simulator tests of bilingual ATC safety now being carried out by the Canadian Ministry of Transport in Ottawa, using ATC simulators and Air Canada flight simulators. After the suspension of flights by Canadian and many overseas pilots in June, Transport Minister Mr Otto Lang agreed not to expand bilingual control unless the Ministry could establish that it was no less safe than the use of English only. CROATIAN HIJACKERS WERE UNARMED TERRORISTS who hijacked a TWA 727 on September 11 on a flight from New York to Chicago and diverted it to Paris were unarmed. The "bombs" they carried were in fact models, carried disassembled through security checks and put together in flight. Five people appeared in court in New York last week accused of the hijacking; they were also charged in Manhattan with the murder of a New York policeman. The French pilots' union SNPL has criticised the French *- >- page 962 British Midland Airways' first McDonnell Douglas DC-9 was delivered on August 27 and was painted at the airline's base. Services between Tees- side and London Heathrow start at the end of this month PSIsBSttKS
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