INTERNATIONAL AIR TRAVEL

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28728, 28 October 1958, Page 17

INTERNATIONAL AIR TRAVEL

Turbine Power Favoured

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) NEW DELHI, October 27.

The world’s airlines are turning to turbine power because it should lead to cheaper travel and expanded tourism, Sir William Hildred, director general of the International Air Transport Association, said in his annual report to the 14th annual meeting of the association. Sir William Hildred said that turbine engines, in jet or propjet aircraft, held promise of lower operating costs and thus continued expansion of airline traffic by progressive fare reductions. The expansion was not only justified by public demand, but was also necessary to national economies which drew increasingly substantial benefits from air tourism.

Tourist expenditures, now several billions of dollars a year, meant ‘‘jobs, markets for home grown products, profits for investors, revenues for governments and relief for local taxpayers,” he said. “Every citizen of every country with some beauty to show —and I know of no country which has none—shares a common objective with the international airlines.”

In a review of the 1957 operations of the world’s airlines, Sir William Hildred said that “while we have done 14 per cent, more work and handled 17 per cent, more money, our expenses have gone up 25 per cent, and our operating profit seems to be down by 40 per cent.” Compared with 1956, the airlines in 1957 carried 13 per cent, more passengers and performed 16 per cent, more passenger-kilometres. 11 per cent, more cargo carriage, and 7 per cent, more mail tonkilometres. Sir William Hildred estimated that their total 1957 revenues were 4100 million dollars against operating expenses of 4050 million dollars, leaving a net margin of 50 million dollars, or 1.2 per cent. Revised 1956 figures showed an operating profit of 84 million dollars. or 2.4 per cent., on revenues of 3510 million dollars. “In spite of these figures the consistent aim of the 86 airlines comprising I.A.T.A. has been to lower the fare, while increasing the comfort and safety of air transport, and to bring air travel within the reach of increasing numbers of the world population at lower and lower income levels,” Sir William Hildred said. Expanding human populations may eventually doom most of the world’s wild life, in spite of the best efforts of conservationists. This is the conclusion of a professor of zoology who points out that most large vertebrates, such as the bison and bear, have already been largely exterminated in the U.S.A, except in state or national parks.