Air correspondent opposes Concorde

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34044, 7 January 1976, Page 11

Air correspondent opposes Concorde

Andrew Wilson, air correspondent of the “Observer.” /5 in Washington to oppose British Airways’ application to begin supersonic services to the United States by the BritishFrench Concorde. Here he explains why.

WASHINGTON, January 6.

My testimony in Washington to the United States Secretary of Transportation (Mr William Coleman), on behalf of the British Conservation Society, is against the supersonic Concorde airliner—an enterprise that represents 14 years' of labour by my fellow-country-men.

In urging the United States to exclude the Concorde from its airports (which could be tantamount to a commercial death sentence), I am aware that I am liable to be seen, even by some who are not “proConcorde,” as acting somewhat unpatriotically. It is a risk I must take if I am to be consistent with all I have written about the Concorde over the last 14 years. The fight against the Concorde has always been on two fronts, the economic and the environmental.

To begin with, it was the environmental that commanded attention, because of

the sonic boom problem, first raised in the “Observer” by the Swedish aeronautical expert, Bo Lundberg, in the early ’6os. Subsequently, the economic aspect became the more important, as costs began to spiral and successive governments, instead of taking the public into their confidence and cancelling the plane, continued to throw good money after bad.

So long as the Concorde was steadily pricing itself out of the market and exhibiting ever-increasing limitations of payload and range, what mattered was to get it stopped. If it had been, as the “Observer” first demanded in 1964, Britain should have saved not only filOOOm but also the civil side of the British aircraft industry, which the Concorde has almost ruined. Regrettably, that battle was lost. Now the fight is back on the environmental front again, as Britain and France, through their State airlines, attempt to get the Concorde accepted at American airports and (under pressure of subsidised competition) by foreign airlines. The danger threatened by the Concorde is well enough known. Suffice it to say that

craft Corporation, that the main purpose of getting these services approved by the United States Government is to establish a “bridgehead” from which to expand both services and sales of aircraft.

the sonic boom — which would almost certainly be sanctioned over Scotland, Wales, and other “lesspopulated” areas of Britain, if it were seen as a means of selling more Concordes — is now only one problem. Among the immediate or serious threats which have emerged since the ’6os are its shattering ground noise, its consumption of precious energy (four times that of subsonic jets) and its erosion of the ozone layer, which protects us from ultra-violet radiation — a source of skin cancer.

Just how many planes would need to be sold to recover the cost of building them, may be gauged from figures given by Tony Benn, then Britain’s Secretary for Industry, in March, 1974. On the present 16 Concordes being built, he told Parliament, the country would lose £2OO-225m; on 35, £260-300m; and on 100. £l2O-125m. The “break-even” production figure (which would still bring no return on the £l2oom spent with France on development) has never been published. It is believed to be about 130 — a total which, if ever built, would make the environmental damage very serious indeed. It is most unlikely, in view of the Concorde’s price, at present reputed to be about £4om per aircraft, that any member of the Government now contemplates such a figure. But in that case, and since every plane built beyond the existing 16 will simply increase the losses, what is the Government’s aim in continuing to push the Concorde?

But surely, critics will argue, the Americans make up their own minds on these matters. Undoubtedly they can, and I think there is a strong chance that Concorde will be banned or cripplingly restricted. But the hearing of British voices opposed to the Concorde is important in Washington for two reasons. The first is that only a British witness (in this case the Bishop of Kingston, appearing on behalf of the Heathrow airport anti-noise group, H.A.C.A.N.), can give evidence of the devastating impact of Concorde takeoffs from Heathrow last summer.

Practically speaking, it can be no more than to dispose of the five half-finished Concordes now standing unsold in the Bristol and Toulouse factories, and to limit the sum which it must pay British Airways because of a commitment by the previous Government to meet all losses incurred on the enforced purchase of five aircraft.

The second is the need to counter the impression, which has been fostered by the Foreign Office in connection with tomorrow’s hearings, that the rejection of the Concorde by the American authorities would be seen throughout Britain as an act of discrimination. This chauvinistic picture is clearly contradicted by the only statistical evidence on the subject — an opinion poll conducted by Business Decisions Limited on behalf of the “Observer” in 1974. The findings showed a majority of respondents (57 per cent) in favour of stopping the whole project. Significantly, a similar result was obtained in France a few weeks later by the Paris newspaper “France Soir.” But the British Government’s stance is dishonest for a quite separate reason, which becomes evident when one examines the public figures on the Concorde’s production economics. In asking America for landing rights, the British Government has maintained that the services proposed — ofie flight a day to Washington and two to New York — would be too infrequent to have serious environmental effects. This, too, is untrue, as noise measurements testify. But the greater dishonesty consists in the fact, admitted by the British Concorde builder, the British Air-

For. apart from the £sm annual operating loss on each plane predicted by its former chairman, Sir David Nicolson, British Airways has made it clear that, in the event of being refused American landing rights, it expects its “contractual position” on the buying of five Concordes to be revised.

This, plus the saving of political face, is the paltry

objective for which Britain and France are courting a confrontation with America and for which the Americans are being asked to expose the citizens of New York and Washington to Concorde’s noise and atmospheric pollution.

What really brings me to Washington is dismay at the philosophy, apparently shared by a Labour Government. that would allow, and even encourage, a privileged few air travellers to override the welfare of millions. For I know of no executive, or even politician, whose time is so valuable as to justify shattering, even for a moment, the peace of cities — let alone contributing his quota, as every Concorde traveller must do. to the risk of skin cancer from ultraviolet radiation. I cannot believe that this is a minority view. But I find it disturbing, and symptomatic of the decline of democratic government in Britain that, in order to lay it before a decision-making agency, it is necessary to come to the capital of the United States.