No Give, No Take

The desired end was to get the British Empire's air lines into efficient competition with the fast moving U.S. lines. But at the Commonwealth Air Transport Council in London last week, the delegates squabbled over the means.

Britain's tall, dictatorial Lord Swinton, Civil Aviation Minister, suggested, in line with Britain's white paper (TIME, March 26), that traffic within the Empire be split equally between Britain's Chosen Instrument, the British Overseas Airways Corp., and Commonwealth air lines.

Canada was profoundly uninterested in this arrangement. Its Government-owned Trans-Canada Air Lines plans to start flying the North Atlantic (Montreal to Prestwick, Scotland) on Sept. 1. By getting a fast start on this rich route, it expects to corral enough traffic so that it can meet all comers, will not have to split with any. In the face of Canada's determination, Lord Swinton reluctantly agreed to competition between B.O.A.C. and Canada on the North Atlantic. But he won his point on the remainder of the Empire routes, such as Britain to India, South Africa and New Zealand. (T.C.A. may balk at pooling the Canada-Australia route.) On these the conference agreed to pool traffic, split it equally--e.g., if six flights are flown to India, B.O.A.C. will fly three, Indian airlines the other three.

In practice, this theory may not work so well. There was plenty of evidence as the Conference ended that, when the other Commonwealth nations are ready to fly, they too may balk at pooling traffic on well-paying routes, may be willing to try it on poor routes. If so, U.S. airlines may get far more competition than they have expected.

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