Letters to the Editor
MANAGERIAL REVOLUTION SIR,—A passage in the November 15 number of the American financial weekly Barron's provides an apt footnote to Mr. Anderson's penetrating article on Collective Insecurity' in the Spectator of November 12. The passage which occurs in an article—' Birds of Omen '—on the much publicised purchase by Capital Airlines of forty Vickers Viscounts reads as follows:
As to Silisation of aircraft, the British companies are satisfied to get four to four-and-one-half hours a day out of a plane where the US figure for plane use runs as high as 10 hours a day. In America, a Viscount turboprop flying for only four hours a day would require an 88 per cent, payload to break even; at eight-and-one-half hours the payload factor would drop to 55.3 per cent. Finally, as to comparative labour efficiency, the figures are all in favour of America. In countries where air trans- port is nationalised, it is always difficult for political reasons to cut payrolls. This means that actual man-hour operating economies are seldom translated into payroll savings: men are merely released to stand around in the hangar.'
As Mr. Anderson says, 'If other countries are prepared to work their machines twice as hard as ours, they will price us out of the market—and our " spread " jobs in that particular trade will cease t& exist.'—Yours faithfully,
A. W. ACWORTH
47 Eaton Square, S.W.1
Previous page
