TRIPS TO CUBA

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31907, 7 February 1969, Page 12

TRIPS TO CUBA

Big Loss Possible

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, Feb. 6.

Airlines which have planes diverted to Cuba stand to lose $lOO,OOO from each hijacking, according to Mr Karl Ruppenthal, director of Stanford University’s transportation management programme. Mr Ruppenthal, an airline pilot for more than 25 years, said in the current issue of the liberal political weekly, the “Nation,” that “each time an airliner is diverted to Havana, its owners must stand the cost of the charter planes sent from Miami to Varadero (Cuba) to pick up the passengers. Other direct costs include crew salaries, landing fees and additional fuel.

“But by far the most important expense for the airline is the loss to service of equipment and the attendant disruption of schedules. “A fully-booked jet can gross approximately $5OOO per hour, and a forced trip to Cuba may easily cost an airline $100,000.” Mr Ruppenthal- said Israel was also suffering from the effects of hijacking, as tourists, recalling the internment of an El Al airliner and passengers in Algeria last year after being diverted on a 1 flight from Rome, switched to other lines.

“Although the Tokyo convention (on hijacking) is the only significant international effort to combat a growing threat to public safety,” Mr Ruppenthal said, “it has been signed by but 29 nations, ratified by eight, and the United States, with the largest air fleet, is not among either group.”