Rivals move to keep Laker grounded

Press, 13 February 1982, Page 8

Rivals move to keep Laker grounded

NZPA London Sir Freddie Laker was running into serious licensing difficulties with his “people's airline” yesterday after satisfactory' talks with Lonrho aimed at a 50-50 partnership to start flights in April.

Rival airlines are certain to oppose his application for a renewed licence on the ground that he is no longer a fit and proper person. One of them, British Caledonian, formally notified the Civil Aviation Authority that it would apply for Laker's Los Angeles licence. Mr Adam Thomson, British Caledonian’s chairman, said that the Laker experiment had failed and “the most honourable solution is to sweep away the Laker Airways debris." Sir Freddie admitted after a two-hour lunch-time meeting with the C.A.A. that “licensing is the main stumbling block at the moment.”

Mr Roland “Tiny” Rowland, Lonrho’s chairman, said that in talks with Sir Freddie oral agreement had . been reached on a “Skytrain Mark II,” of which Sir Freddie would be chief executive and Lonrho a sleeping partner. Up to 10 DClOs, costing about $lB7 million, are apparently envisaged to fly cheap services on the same routes as before: New York, Florida, and Los Angeles. ... They would probably carry the name “Laker” on the tail fin and “Peoples Airline" on

the body, Mr Rowland said.

If Sir Freddie’s new airline is sufficiently close to the old one in routes, schedules and fares, he will need to satisfy the C.A.A. of his financial strength and commercial profitability to prevent revocation of his existing licences from Wednesday.

These licences were granted not to Laker International, which is in the hands of the official receivers, but to Laker Airways, a Jersey company Sir Freddie still owns, If the authority decided on a reprieve this could be done within days. But if the C.A.A. took the view that it. was a new airline, new licences with public hearings and the right to object would be necessary, taking months. It is clear there would be objections from other airlines. A senior executive-of one (not British Caledonian) said: “Officials at the C.A.A. must feel very conscious of their public duty, and very sure that what happened last week would not happen again. We would regard it as amoral to continue the same policy that put Laker into liquidation last week, using aircraft picked up at halfprice.

"If that happened the Americans would be right out of their seats. Acker (chairman of Pan American World whose matching low fares in November helped to

precipitate the Laker crisis) would tighten the attack. Laker and possibly Pan Am would be out of business within a year, and others would suffer.

“It could legitimately be asked if the C.A.A. had failed in its public duty to further a viable British aviation industry.” . ■

British Caledonian, Britain’s biggest independent scheduled airline, with a fleet of 20 aircraft flying to North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia, hopes to run six flights a week to Los Angeles from June with three classes, including a "low competitive tariff in economy.”

It held a licence to Los Angeles in the early 19705. Mr Thomson said: “We hope to operate a viable service similar to that proposed in 1978 when the Government saw fit to give B.Cal rights to Laker for a ‘Skytrain’ operation. At the time our Los Angeles licence was snatched away to be given to Laker we told the Secretary of State that the Laker service must operate at a loss and that it represented a gamble.”

Sir Freddie said outside the Lonrho offices yesterday: “We want to fly as manyaeroplanes as we can. we want to employ as many of the staff as we can and we want to give the customers a jolly good show."