The Future of Air Transport: A British View

by PETER MASEFIELD

VOLUME 173

NUMBER 1

JANUARY, 1944

87th YEAR OF CONTINUOUS PUBLICATION

AIR transport, a child of peace reared in war, approaches maturity. Under the spur of war, flying has found its technical independence. It is free to start anew in the peaceful skies of tomorrow, bound only by such artificial restrictions as the nations choose to apply.

We have a great responsibility before us. On the international decisions made in the next few years will depend the service which air transport can afford mankind over generations to come. We must see to it that the technical shackles now cast off are not exchanged for more binding national shackles of restriction.

Mr. Grover Loening and Mr. William Burden, in the preceding articles of this series, have set down sane and competent considerations from the American point of view. In Britain there is undoubtedly general agreement with the principles they propound. Mr. Loening and Mr. Burden, whom I am happy to count my friends, look forward to the post-war air age with high expectations which are shared in Britain and throughout the British Commonwealth.

Yet, while the technical future seems assured, the political and diplomatic future is less certain. The possibilities which air transport holds out are matched only by the problems which attend them. Those problems seem to me to fall into three main categories. All of them have international aspects.

The Three Great Problems

There are, first of all, the problems of policy and diplomacy — the questions of air bases, of freedom of the air in all its grades, of military security. These difficult propositions can be resolved only by international discussion conducted in a spirit of good will and coöperation. The United Nations can set an example to the world.

Second come the operational problems — the matters of subsidy, of monopoly, of national air routes, of traffic, of frequency of service, and of control. For the most part they are national problems. But they have their international aspects where agreement on standards is required.

Third, and easiest of solution, the technical problems. They concern the building of aircraft and of their equipment — especially radio. Again they bring with them the compelling need for world-wide standards so that aircraft can be operated equally and safely everywhere.

We must face these problems frankly and boldly. Technically and operationally I believe we can see forward, albeit with increasing dimness, for about fifteen years. Those fifteen years must be a period of development in air transport operations; a period which compares with, but far transcends, the years when the great railroads were driven across continents. With sense, fairness, coöperation, and good will it can be a period of world renaissance in trade, prosperity, and understanding resulting from swift communication — just as famine, disaster, misery, and ultimately war, follow the erection of national barriers.

Copyright 1943, by The Atlantic Monthly Company, Boston, Mass. All rights recieved.

Outline of the Future

A good deal of independent thought has been given to the overall problems of air transport in Great Britain in recent months. I believe that the following brief summary represents a cross-section of British informed but unofficial opinion as it stands at present.

1. Air Bases. Obviously many recently built air bases throughout the world are mutually necessary to the United States and the British Commonwealth for national defense. As such they must be shared. Air commerce is a separate thing. The sovereignty of bases must always belong to the peoples of the countries in which they are situated.

2. The Freedoms. Freedom to operate air services through air bases on foreign soil will, almost inevitably, depend on reciprocity during the early post-war period before the broad issues are settled. More general freedom will follow.

3. National Security. Air transport in itself can be no menace to wmrld peace. Air bases throughout the world are themselves guarantees of peace as harbors for the police air forces of the United Nations.

4. International Control. An international air transport authority on which nations of good will would be represented is needed to lay down standards and to regulate international routes, operated by national companies.

5. Operating Policy. General opinion in Britain favors regulated rivalry rather than uncontrolled competition in national and international airline operation. Monopolies are not favored or considered efficient. Participation by shipping and railroad concerns will be welcomed so long as it promotes efficient commercial operation for the good of air transport in general.

6. Subsidy and Economics. Sound commercial operation is a necessity. Air transport can pay its way economically so long as it does not meet the competition of noncommercial subsidies. Direct subsidies should be forsworn internationally as soon as possible and be replaced by payment for services rendered in mail contracts and by the provision of airports, meteorological, lighting, and control services, and radio facilities free to all.

7. Aircraft. For civil purposes aircraft are likely to increase in size up to about 150 tons, after which frequency of service will be more important than extra size. Military aircraft may grow bigger. Pressure cabins, thermal de-icing, and — eventually — jet propulsion will make air transport swifter, safer, and more comfortable.

8. Administration. In Great Britain many believe that a new Ministry of Civil Aviation, separate from and coequal with the military Air Ministry in time of peace, would confer great benefits on British civil flying. This Ministry as well as the individual operators would be represented on an international air transport authority.

9. Radio. Radio and radar will be among the most important attributes of safe and regular air services. International standards are essential. These things emphasize the world-wide nature of air transport and how any narrow national view or lack of coördination is impossible in the future unless progress is to be hamstrung.

10. Private Flying. A great increase over prewar private flying is certain, but under strict safety regulations on behalf of regular air services. Helicopters are likely to have wide use, but as air taxis rather than as private automobiles.

Such is a broad view of the possibilities. Immediately after the war, one can foresee swift development of international flying. The size, speed, and economic range of transport aircraft flying the trunk air routes will increase as steadily as the cost of operation will fall. Short-range hops between big cities will be the most paying. The power and the glory will belong to the world-circling arteries of air trade moving in giant leaps across ocean and deserts.

Post-war Prospects

The indications are that shortly after the end of the war, over the longest air routes, block-to-block speeds of about 130 miles per hour will be maintained in all weathers on regular schedules. The most modern main-line transport aircraft available then will cruise at rather more than 200 miles per hour for ranges of about 1500 miles nonstop. The cost is likely to work out at about 12 cents per passenger-mile, or less than 50 cents per ton-mile for cargo. That means a passenger fare of about $420 from London to New York if no direct subsidies are given — only landing facilities. Short-haul fares will be at a lower rate.

Between ten and fifteen years after the end of the war, I believe we can look forward to round-theworld block-to-block schedules of about 270 miles per hour, cruising at speeds of up to 350 miles per hour at 25,000 feet for ranges of as much as 3500 miles nonstop — the ultimate necessary. I believe that costs can drop to less than 6 cents per passenger-mile or 22 cents per ton-mile over even the longest ranges, with costs for shorter ranges down in proportion. And those will be true commercial rates, so that direct subsidies will be unnecessary. The great technical advances in methods of propulsion which are impending for transport aircraft when the war is over make this prospect no mere fantasy, but sober, calculable fact.

Developments of this sort mean that, immediately following the war, New York will be within twentyfour flying hours of London, even against the most severe headwinds known. The time will shrink to twelve flying hours between ten and fifteen years after the end of the war — by 1060 at any rate. And the cost of a single passage will fall to about $200 per passenger or about 40 cents per pound package. For short hauls Mr. Loening’s hope for rates of 3 to 4 cents per ton-mile may well be achieved, putting air transport on an economic level with surface transport for all except the heavy, bulky loads for up to 600-mile hops.

These things can be attained technically without a doubt. They can be attained internationally by wholehearted, vigorous, and cooperative planning — now. They can open up a new era of trade and prosperity through swift and frequent air services.

What is the aim? We must not mislead ourselves by enthusiasm. We must not become dazzled by the prospects. For no other situation in the world’s history has bristled with so many political difficulties. The reason is that nations are being brought closer together than they had ever reckoned to be. The old strategic barriers of oceans, icecaps, mountains, and rivers are now as nought.

The difficulties, complex as they are, resolve themselves into one major question: “What is your object in opening up airlines across the world?” Can we answer it frankly? If one of the major objects is, honestly, to better communications and to build up new arteries of trade for mutual benefit, then all will be well. International collaboration will be attained with good will on all sides. But if the object is merely to get in and shut out the other fellow, whoever he may be, then the seeds of future antagonisms are sown.

Let us have rivalry by all means, for from that comes efficiency of operation. But let us not have rabid cutthroat competition, nothing barred. For along that road lie bankruptcy, chaos, and — war.

This view might be termed idealistic. It is. Idealism is needed, but not impracticable goals. We need honest enthusiasm linked to horse sense and knowledge of the way to get things done. We should be blind if we believed that national rivalry will be or can be sunk in international bonds.

Air transport is and will remain individualistic. But we start after the war with a clean slate. Let us keep it clean and, in the new start, build up a solid structure founded on common sense and the will to progress.

The ten major issues to be faced I have summarized already. When those ten points are settled to the satisfaction of all nations and of all, or nearly all, operating concerns, then — and only then — can the world start to reap the full benefits from a method of transportation which has shrunk its comparative diameter from that of a baseball to that of a pea, judged by the standards of a hundred years ago.

The space of a book would be needed to deal with all the political, diplomatic, economic, operational, and technical facts of the ten points. But some slight elaboration of considerations on four of them is essential — on the thorny subjects of air bases, the freedoms, operating policies, and aircraft.

Air Bases

Undoubtedly the biggest issue between Great Britain and the United States today is that of air bases. Thanks to the effort s of its aviation pioneers, the British Commonwealth possesses suitable and convenient air bases spread around the world at intervals which rarely exceed 1000 miles. Only in the Pacific is there any serious gap. British aircraft can fly around the world without once calling on foreign territory.

Hitherto the possession of these bases has not been a subject for intense discussion, because ships have had so much range, and aircraft so little, that there has been no need to exploit them. Now, in consequence of war, aircraft have been developed with sufficient range to span oceans while carrying a commercial load. At the same time bases have been constructed where no aircraft flew before. It is the first stride forward toward real world air transport. But it brings us up against the question of bases with a bang.

The matter is all the more complex because, as a result of war, the United States has spent much money on the construction of air bases on British territory. Military air bases, such as those at Bermuda, Jamaica, and Trinidad, are leased to the United States for ninety-nine years. At present the right of civil aircraft to operate through them is restricted. What will happen as soon as the war is won?

The answer must take into account three things: (1) national security; (2) freedom of air passage; (3) the sovereign rights of peoples. From the point of view of hemisphere defense the British possessions in the Atlantic and the Caribbean are outposts of American security — and will remain so. That is but one of the many powerful reasons why the two great English-speaking nations must forever progress side by side in mutual coöperation.

The fact that the United States has spent much money and labor on air bases where none existed before is, I know, regarded in America as establishing an American civil right to those bases. On the other hand, one might argue that the expenditure was a wartime necessity of self-defense. It matched the necessity of the British to concentrate labor and money on fighter and bomber production to the exclusion of all else, and to sacrifice the best lives of the nation in the Battle of Britain —which saved the world. The one expenditure has resulted in permanent bases for American defense; the other in military aircraft which become obsolete and in men dead who can never be restored.

Be that as it may — and it is one of the decisive chapters of history — the problem of the bases looms large. No detailed official view is forthcoming as yet. It is probably too early to expect any.

My personal opinion — and all the opinions expressed here are of course entirely unofficial and only my own interpretations — is that whereas the bases, under the terms of the lease, will naturally continue as bulwarks of American strategic defense, their sovereignty belongs unquestionably to the peoples in whose countries they are built. The bases were made for military purposes — for the defense of American and British hearths and homes. In the post-war world they will — indeed must — continue that defensive function. Their use for air trade and as steppingstones for air commerce is an entirely separate subject. It is a subject which can be dealt with only in the whole broad issue of freedom of the air.

In the meantime, before these freedoms are thrashed out and settled for the benefit of generations to come, some temporary agreement is obviously necessary so that air commerce can begin after the war without delay and with a minimum of restriction. It is a prune point for a future conference table.

The Freedoms

Complete “open skies” are an impracticable ideal which would lead to chaos. The four freedoms of the air can depend eventually only on frank coöperative international discussion and agreement. All the portents suggest that the freedom to fly through the air space of a state without landing, provided certain prohibited areas are avoided (and the fewer the better), will be universally acknowledged.

Freedom of transit — that is, freedom to refuel without picking up or setting down passengers or cargo — is likely to be granted on a reciprocal basis, in the early stages after the war. Later a greater freedom can, one hopes, prevail. But even in the early days the reciprocity need not be on a mere quid pro quo basis, but on much broader lines.

Freedom to set dowm passengers on through services is certain to be on a reciprocal basis until a larger freedom prevails.

Freedom to operate air services to pick up and set down passengers on terminal services is again certain to be founded on reciprocity. The important aspects are: first, that reciprocity should be freely given, whether one nation is in a position to operate services or not; and, second, that internal and motherland and colonial services should be reserved to the country concerned.

The details can be arranged only over the conference table, for the issues are complex in the extreme and national sovereignty is jealously guarded. Air transport presents new and as yet unfamiliar problems for statesmen to solve. Their comprehension of all the considerations involved must be gradual. Thus we may have to proceed more slowly than experienced operators would desire.

Operating Policies

Both Mr. Burden and Mr. Locning have sided against monopoly in their previous articles. So has every non-governmental committee which has studied the matter in England. Regulated rivalry rather than uncontrolled competition is the desire. And surely rightly. This air transport business is far too big for monopolies. Nor has past British experience with Imperial Airways and with the British Overseas Airways Corporation tended to increase faith in the efficiency of “chosen instruments” — however Biblical they may sound.

The situation is largely political. If my reading of the indications is correct, the Conservative Party in Parliament would vote for private enterprise, whereas the Labor Party would be in favor of a state-controlled instrument or instruments.

Undoubtedly the trend of informed opinion in Great Britain is for separate companies on all the major routes: one for the North Atlantic, another for the South Atlantic, another for European airlines, another to South Africa — and so on. An AngloCanadian company might operate between England and Canada, and an Anglo-South African company between London and Cape Town. More than one company might operate over one route, though perhaps not on a strictly comparable basis. For instance, Australia can be reached from England by at least three different ways with different average length of nonstop stages — each bearing different traffic.

The British shipping lines are taking a great interest in air transport. Contrary to the American point of view, few people in Britain see in this any attempt to strangle air commerce. Rather it is regarded as a chance for the shipowners to use surplus capital gained through insurance and so preserve company interests in spheres of transportation developed over years. So long as the shipping and railroad companies are not given powers to freeze out established independent airline companies which have borne the heat and burden of the day in pioneering, then their participation will be welcomed, Traffic-handling experience and booking agencies built up over years, when they are allied to existing airlines, can be of real value to air transport as a whole.

Aircraft

Many people in Britain have felt concern because no British transport aircraft have been in production, while hundreds of fine transports are turned out each month in the United States. The survival of Great Britain — and indeed of the civilized world — depended on the flow from British factories of Hurricanes and Spitfires, Wellingtons and Blenheims, and the other military aircraft which held the Luftwaffe at bay in 1940 and 1941. There was no time or opportunity to build transports.

But when Germany has gone down into defeat, the need for transport aircraft to carry the war to the Far East and to feed stricken Europe will be greater than ever. Some small proportion of British night bomber production can then be turned over to transport production until the defeat of Japan. By the time the world has been cleansed of Japanese foulness by united American and British efforts, there should be at least a nucleus of British transport aircraft in existence to begin air services and on which to found a planned program of development.

Many different types of aircraft will be needed for the varying problems of specialized routes. Pressure cabins will be needed. Modified jet propulsion is likely to emerge during the next ten years as a commercial proposition, making possible cruising speeds fully 50 per cent higher than those standard today.

Size will thus depend on range. As the longest ranges necessary will not be more than about 3500 miles, the largest airplane necessary would appear to work out at about 150 tons loaded weight, carrying up to 150 passengers or 40 tons of cargo. Such a size is probably too small for the true all-wing airplane, except as a cargo carrier or bomber, both of which may reach much bigger sizes. So we may expect to see, during the next fifteen years, most transport aircraft with more or less conventional fuselage, with wing arrangements much cleaned up, with revolutionary methods of propulsion, and with a cruising speed up to 350 miles per hour. The landplane will, I believe, almost — but not quite — supplant the flying boat up to weights of 150 tons.

These observations touch but the fringe of the immense subject and leave much unsaid. But as one fundamental fact, I should like to endorse Mr. Burden’s remark that “any constructive policy must be based on the realization that air transportation is a good thing, and that the more we have of it the better for the human race.” Fundamental also is Mr. Loening’s thesis that “we must approach problems realistically and with a thoroughly sound fundamental understanding of this philosophy: that the granting of private initiative does not carry with it the warrant for totalitarian private greed.” All nations should remember that caution if we are to escape new and more disastrous wars.

Most British people will also agree profoundly with Dr. Edward P. Warner when he writes: “Competition between British and American airlines should be as keen but at the same time as friendly and as coöperative, in matters where cooperation is mutually advantageous, as competition between any two airlines within the United States.

. . . As in the case of many another problem of British-American relations, the underlying spirit will be more important than the legal form of the solution.” Mr. Joseph Kastner has spoken truly in writing that “the world must realize how small a suggestion of the awful might of air power this war has revealed; how small and foolish our present planes will seem in the eyes of history, how greatly airplanes will take over future travel.”

All the signs are here. America and the British Commonwealth see their future in the air, proclaimed in many tongues. United in war to defeat common foes who have threatened our freedom, we must remain united in the ideals of peace. We can build upon the new foundation and bond which air transport gives us a better, more prosperous, more closely knit civilization than any we have known before.