LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
AIR TRANSPORT AND THE R.A.F.
Ini,—The contention of Mr. Anthony F. West that air transport is too dangerous and wasteful to have any commercial justification has the bouquet of an old wine. The same pessimistic advice was handed round many years ago. The past 21 years of organised commercial flying have evidently done nothing to raise the hopes of, or implant any faith in, the class to which Mr. West belongs. He hints that air line companies make a secret of their accident figures. I hold no brief for them but I must point out that every accident in which a passenger is injured becomes the subject of an inquiry and the ensuing report is published. Mr. West is persuaded, too, that no air line has ever made a profit without a subsidy from the State. That assertion could only be maintained if he insisted on describing payments for the carriage of mails as subsidy.
We are bound to agree that by the standards of surface transport, air fares are high. Freight rates in particular will never compare, so far as we can foresee, with the cargo rates of tramp shipping. But the rates for other kinds of merchandise are about to be tested and there will soon be some evidence as to the value of speed in the marketing or delivery of certain products. To accuse air transport of being costly and leave it at that is to declare speed to be superfluous. If that lies at the root of Mr. West's attack he will find many who could wish it were true. That will not make it true ; and the costliness of air transport cannot be established without proving that speed is too dear at its price.
Passenger fares on relatively short hauls may not come below 4d. a mile for a time, although air lines in the United States are aiming at 21d. a mile. Freight rates have been estimated as likely to average 2s. 6d. per ton-mile. Aircraft are now coming forward that should do better than that. We shall see whether or not speed at such rates will find a market. If it does, air transport companies will soon become sound business undertakings and every liner which fills 6o per cent. of its capacity on ali its runs should pay its way. The industry is young, though Mr. West's prejudice against it is old. It has suffered a grievous interruption in its development but it was promising well and all it needs is a fair chance to fulfil that promise.—I am, yours faithfully, E. COLSTON SHEPHERD, Pall Mall East, S.W.r. Sec.-Gen., Air League.
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