A Word for the Air Traveller
By OLIVER STEWART
IN an age of anti-trust legislation, monopolies comm issions, and Acts of Parliament for con- trolling resale price maintenance, the Inter- national Air Transport Association marches boldly on its way, a notable and highly effective monopoly, creator of a price ring in air fares,
large-scale instigator of restrictive practices. , One small aspect of Iata's activities was brought to public notice not long ago when a group of flower fanciers had their plans to fly the Atlantic to meet others with like interests suddenly sabotaged because of an Iata ruling. Their abrupt humiliation by the air line to which they had entrusted their custom gave the whole of air transport an ugly look.
It was an example of how the air lines gang up against their passengers. Other examples in- clude the obstruction of those fare reductions which might have been brought about by the use of slower aircraft. The new excursion air fares are fixed in every sense of the word. Iota's spy service sees to it that prices are firmly main- tained. Disobedient members are heavily fined. Iata is an association of air lines devoted to fixing and maintaining prices and to ensuring that no passenger gets any more for his money than any other passenger, and that air line pas- sengers are deprived of the means of expressing approval or disapproval by the selective giving or withholding Of their custom. What one inter- national air line offers, they all offer. No more and no less. Take it, or do not travel by air.
Iata is not an association of governments, but governments take the lazy way of supporting it because it does some of the work they might otherwise have to do. And so it has something approaching,governmental prestige. It took over from the International Air Traffic Association in 1945 after the originating body had been formed at the Hague in August 1919. It tends to be grandiloquent about its aims. They are: To promote safe, regular and economical air trans- port for the benefit of the peoples of the world. . .' But then it becomes a little more revealing: To provide means for collaboration among the air transport enterprises engaged directly or indirectly in international air transport services.'
It exacts large fees from its air line members, fees which, in the final analysis, come out of the air travellers' pockets. Yet it accords the air traveller no voice in what it does. He pays the piper, but is not allowed to call the tune. Iata is there to see that he never ggs what it con- siders to be too much for his money.
Once it engaged in a highly ludicrous attempt to define a sandwich, because it felt that a certain air line, by giving its passengers bigger and better sandwiches, might be obtaining an unfair advan- tage over other air lines. More recently it has been anxiously considering whether its member com- panies ought to be allowed to present television programmes in their aircraft. And communities which are ultra-sensitive to other forms of the rigging of prices and services accept Iota's dic- tates without a murmur.
If rata does its duty to its members it must be against the passenger. It is really an anti- consumer organisation in excelsis. It tries to ex- plain away some of its acts by bringing in aviation's universal excuse; excuse for charging too much, for being unpunctual, for deficiencies in service and for other failings, the excuse that it is all for the sake of safety. That argument was dimmed, however, in the confrontation be- tween technical representatives of Iata and the late Lord Brabazon at the time he was cam- paigning for the use of paraffin rather than petrol in the turbine aeroengines used in trans- port aircraft. Lord Brabazon, many believed, and not Iata, was on the side of safety.
Criticitism of Iota has often been muted. Yet there arc times when its work is clearly in the interests of the air transporters rather than of the air transported. That adverse comment has been so scarce is partly because Iata's Director- General, Sir William P. Hildred, is a man of long aviation experience, a good speaker and con- troversialist and a popular personality here and in the United States and Canada. Hildred has saved lata's face many times.
When some time ago I put to him my view that lata is a price ring, abstracting from the customer the right to select and froth the operator the right to compete, he reeled off a number of other Iota activities, its technical work, its statis- tical studies, and its function as a clearing house. He also drew a harrowing picture of the chaos that would prevail in the setting of fares if Iata did not exist and government departments tried to do the work. But in spite of his per- suasive eloquence, I found nothing to alter my view that lata is an enemy to the individual air traveller and a brake on air transport enterprise.
Sir William Hildred has held his present post since 1946. At its annual general meeting at Bogota, Knut Hammarskjold, nephew of the late Dag Hammarskjold of the United Nations, was designated to succeed to the post of Director- General in mid-April 1966. But 'there is nothing to suggest that the power of Iata will be cur- tailed. And in a world that is becoming frightened of competition and free customer choice, in spite of the bold showing of its legis- lation, it might be unpractical to suggest the abblition of Iota. Nevertheless, its activities might be modified so that the air traveller was allowed a little more say in air transport practice.
The 'recommendations to governments on worldwide passenger fares and cargo rates from the Composite Traffic Conferences Meeting \‘ ill be accepted. With the acceptance there goes the understanding that all the member air lines will conform to agreed standards.
If air transport has possibilities of develop- ment beneficial to the passenger's purse or person, they will have a mighty struggle to appear hile Iota reigns.
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