What was Airline Deregulation in the UK?
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
- Further to my earlier video on the deregulation of the US airline industry, the British airline industry was also subject to incremental deregulation over the course of forty years, removing control from the dominating state carriers, BOAC and BEA, and allowing creation of a free market now occupied by low cost carriers and mainstream airlines from both the UK and Europe.
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References:
- Science Direct (and their respective references)
- The implications of the Ireland-UK airline deregulation for an EU internal market (SD Barrett, 1997)
- Airline deregulation and privatisation in the UK (G Yarrow, 1995)
- Airline deregulation: international experiences (K Button, 2017)
- Wikipedia (and its respective references)
First time I've disagreed - the myth of the VC-10 passenger mile "inefficiency" has long been disproved. Likewise, the VC-10 was designed to BOAC requirements prior to them dumping the purchase contract and leaving no customers for Vickers' airframes. A similar tactic was employed by BOAC with the VC-1000. The 1-11 was also scuppered by BEA strong-arming BAC into a limited design for domestic line use, then abandoning the contract.
I couldn't agree more. There is a good reason why people said that BOAC really stood for Boeing Only Airline Company.
This is arse about face just as you have said for the VC-10 and for the Trident that should have been a larger plane and Rolls-Royce were going to build the larger Medway engine for it. BEA forced a smaller Trident onto de Haviland and as soon as they got it they wanted something larger. Admittedly the Trident wasn't helped by de Haviland being stupidly open to Boeing before Boeing built the 727. So you had the Trident stuck with the Spey engine and the oddity of a four engined three engined aircraft in the Trident 3. Also known as "The Gripper" some said of the Trident it was only the curvature of the earth that allowed it to take off. One of only a few planes that could deploy its thrust reverse in flight meaning it could overfly the weather then drop at 10,000 ft/min.
Not forgetting that the Trident was the only plane that could land at some airports in the 60s and early 70s. The amount of fog we used to get, made worse by coal fires would mean the amount of fog would be unbelievable to anyone who didn't witness it. The Trident was the worlds first commercial aircraft with autoland and could land in category 3 C vision restriction.
BEA Presents: Clear to Land- 1968 Trident Promo Film ua-cam.com/video/v7RMlluY0sA/v-deo.html
I absolutely love how these videos just end cold, no self-promotion. Very, very British, very 1980s BBC.
Plucky Freddie Laker, it took the combined might of airlines from many countries to try and take him out but he fought them all the way. Legend.
Laker busted two companies that I know of, and treated his staff with disdain. Some legend.
@@timfly767 If it wasn’t for the likes of Freddie Laker the working classes wouldn’t have been able to afford air travel & holidays abroad .Only rich people could afford to fly before the 1960 ‘s ,that’s why you see the gents all wearing posh suits & ladies in Paris fashions in old airline photos .
@@maskedavenger2578 Absolutely, anyone who is involved in the airline business ever since knows it's absolutely cut throat. Freddie was under so much pressure but he held on until the end, transforming the airline industry in the process.
Excellent video again.
The picture on the thumbnail is Manchester Airport, 1970's.
Had many a good spotting day there in the 70's 🙂
Did you go to Beaver Road School?
@@oldmanc2 No sorry I didn't.
The VC10 was developed for hot and high routes for BOAC. They then got cold feet and tried to leave vickers high and dry. The goverment told BOAC they had to take the plane. Its was more expensive to run than the 707 but was more robust, faster, less noisey and popular with passengers. The trident was developed to strict BEA requests too, leaving the market to be dominated by the Boeing 727. BOAC was no friend to British domestic manufacturers! Known as Boeing only air charter.
Look at this line-up. 727s, BAC1-11, a Comet and a Caravelle. Fascinating days. It's just boring Boeings and Buses now.
Even the Avro RJ has been phased out.
@Arthur Humphreys Motor Sich Airlines: bet
Back in the day they probably thought it was boring. Rose tinted glasses.
@Arthur Humphreys Your absolutely right
Very interesting.
How about a video on British regional airlines? They are part of the history of airline travel in the UK too and still have a role to play today.
Remember the advert? I wish they all could be Caledonia girls....
Caledonian girls, not Caledonia.
@@AtheistOrphan nice one...I troll pedant's. ...lol you're absolutely right!
@@AtheistOrphan R ya tekin' th pish ? 16:1
My preferred airline for London to European destinations. The free drinks had nothing to do with it.
Forced to buy the VC10 which was designed to their spec.
Glad it happened though the VC10 is my all time favorite airline, truly elegant and the origin queen of the skies.
Same with the Trident, it was originally going to be a bigger plane until BEA asked for it to be shrunk.
The VC10 is not an airline. That would be BOAC. VC10 is the name of the aircraft.
@@AtheistOrphan The "r" was silent, yet implied.
Fabulous 60's and 70's footage with excellent narration, as usual!
Do a video on the privatisation of Japanese railways.
Motion seconded :D
12:05 british airways ended up operating concorde at a profit as they just rose the ticket prices to what the sorts of people using the plane would expect, which was very high
I have to argue the point you make regarding BOAC and BEA being forced to buy inefficient specialised aircraft like the VC10 and the Trident. What you fail to explain is that the design of these aircraft was bespoke for BEA and BOAC at their request. Also worth noting in the case of the Trident is that BEA changed their mind several times during its creation resulting in big delays and great overspend. And as always just like we did with Comet we shared all our findings with the good ole USA and told them about all the pitfalls and errors we have discovered and made leaving the coast clear for Boeing to make a competitor to our products without any flaws or bad reputation.
Not sure I'd agree that Virgin Atlantic was, pre-pandemic, in a strong commercial position, given they have had more years with loses than profit in recent times.
The real shame is that, for most of the UK, low-cost is the only option for most flying. That said, more people can fly more places for less than ever before, which is surely a measure of success.
Not sure how the finances of Virgin Australia are related to the V-Atlantic ones, if at all, but we had Branson and Virgin Australia begging, then demanding a bailout and help from Australian taxpayers. It was odd, given Branson was/is only peripherally involved with the enterprise, but I suppise he is a foreceful spokesman for the brand he created. Deregulation in Australia has seen several start-ups fail, one of the legacy carriers (Ansett) go Tango Uniform, due in part to historical issues, but also Air New Zealand involvement, and Australian Airlines (formerly TAA) get swallowed by QANTAS.
As an American avgeek, I had no clue about this history of British airlines. Thanks for this.
ruairidh is Turing into James may i like it
CLARKSON
@@lillywho HAMMOND YOU BLITHERING IDOI
You may not like it.
@@calum5975 i love it
Oh the stupendous footage in this video! I so enjoyed. Especially seeing my favourites Trident and the 1011 👌
Absolutely excellent video Ruairidh!
Ryanair isn't a flag carrier, Ireland's flag carrier is Aer Lingus.
EDIT: if you wish to correct me, this has been cleared up in the previous comment.
He didn't say it was. He said "other flag carriers and low-cost airlines" and listed a number of airlines from each category.
@@mirzaahmed6589 ah I must've missed the "and low-cost airlines" bit.
And now Emirates is/was(pre-Covid) the International airline of the UK.
Good video. Thanks!
Wow, I did not know that
@@managed9348 The defacto International airline to be precise
9:38
Wow, Concorde looks so sleek in that BOAC livery!
The evaluation of the VC-10 is completely wrong, it was basically the same as the 707 for efficiency and a much better aircraft.
Great piece,although l would not class the VC10 as inefficient though.lt was designed to BOAC's specification for the empire routes,and in the end it was this company who scuppered it,despite being popular with crews and passengers alike😎👍
British state-run monopolies have generally proved to be a complete disaster, especially for consumers, noted examples include:
British Leyland
British Telecom
British Steel
Sealink Ferries
The list mentioned by Humphrey Appleby in Yes Prime Minister was pretty detailed.
Amazing how many of these airlines at the end of the day became part of British airways
*raises hand*
I don't believe that Concorde was really a loss maker in the traditional sense. The BA operated 747s of the time needed three quarters to be at a break even factor whilst the Concordes in the same time period required a mere 25 - 50% loading for the same and most flights were full anyway so they made a fair bit of money every time they pushed back from the terminal. With a bit more of careful planning and management taken with them, they would have likely paid off the total construction and development costs by around 86/87. The old girls were really hampered by the leasing costs on top of this, though ironically, the last ever flight marked the end of these payments.
#ConcsForever
There is very little mention of the influence Sir Freddie Laker had on deregulation in the UK market. Without him there would not have been affordable fares across the Atlantic. Nor was there any mention of his attempt to start the Global train which would have opened up routes to Hong Kong, Japan and Australia.
You should do the Court Line story, it's pretty interesting.
Good story, amazing footage!
Used to fly BCAL Houston to London. They were very good.
@ 1:47 what is that landing?
SNCASE SE.161 Languedoc (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNCASE_SE.161_Languedoc)
Another great video!
1:48 what is this 4 engine twin fin aeroplane?
Not a spotter but Lockheed Constellation would be my guess.
Not a spotter but I would guess it
is a Lockheed Constellation
@@stewedwards3122 was my first thought too but dihedral on tail, main undercart looks too short, and where is the looong nose wheel leg. perhaps its the camera angle and telephoto lens foreshortning. for that matter the profile of fuselage looks a bit too 'squareish' as well.
Looks like a York.
Not a Connie now I look at it. Not sure about the York suggestion, the York had 3 fins and Merlins, this aircraft is probably tailwheel but they look like radial engines/circular cowls.
Will look into this
Kind regards
Stew
When I was a kid in the 80s I thought British Caledonian was Scotlands national carrier! 🏴
Like Johnny 5 said " Need more input"
I feel my brain sells growing.
Barely mentions the many charter-carriers over the years, who carried a large percentage of ex-UK air-travellers, for decades before the LCCs came along ?
16:48 Wing wobble!
Theres a different story about the vc10. BOAC found it was actually cheaper to operatebthan the 707. But, then. Boeings Overseas Airways Corporation was so weddednto the yanks, the management of BOAC was never going to be convinced. Yanks subsidies madenitmpossible for Boeing to create the 707 off the back of the USAF tankers contract
Yet another success by Mrs Thatcher
British Airways is not the flag carrier for the UK. They only operate international flights out of Heathrow and Gatwick. Ther is far more to the UK than London....
1:14 - Believe this footage is from a 1930's Shell Petrol promotional film entitled Airport.
Another good video covering bad management 🤔
But wasn't the VC-10 made to BOAC's specifications, who then decided they didn't need it any longer?
They used it for twenty years.
Excellent video 👍 saludos desde México 👍
Some great video there, especially of 1960s airliners
Privatization usually results in poor service at higher prices until the private sector investors close the concern after taking the money for their own benefit.
Pay your money and take your choice.
Wrong on all counts.
@@freddiebozwell7049 The customers are never given a choice between a state owned service and a monopolistic privately owned operation. Coustomers only get to choose the most expensive and profitable.
@@mirzaahmed6589 not that wrong, it's pretty much Exactly what happened to the railways in New Zealand. To the point where the Government bought back the entire (remaining, much reduced) network for a dollar (and an agreement that the private entity would pay a track usage fee), and then a few years later everything else (arguably for slightly more than it was really worth).
Importantly, this is mostly only an issue with Infrastructure.
These days, the standard practice in New Zealand is q mixed model. For banks: private, and mostly foreign owned... But the Government runs Kiwibank (which provides only consumer banking services) as a State Owned Enterprise in order to, essentially, set minimum standards of service without legislating them.
The power grid has the "retail" and generation sections fully privatized... But the Government owns and maintains most, if not all, of the grid linking everything up.
With the railways, these days the Government owns and maintains the tracks, signalling systems, and much of the other Infrastructure and rolling stock. It issues licenses to other entities (heritage groups, city councils, one or two of it's own SOEs, and Technically anyone who can scrape together the funding and a viable plan that doesn't cause more problems than are justified by the benefits) to actually run services on it, and will rent engines, carriages, and wagons to those entities if they don't provide their own.
The health system... Also q mixed bag. Some things are privatized, with degrees of subsidization ranging from "none" to "would be excessive in other contexts". Heavily regulated regardless. But the Hospitals are run Entirely by district health boards, which are a sort of dedicated local government Specifically for that (and managing the other services in their district). The membership of the boards is mostly (entirely?) elected. The boards answer to the ministry of health (or whatever they're calling it these days) though. This system is causing problems at the moment precisely because successive governments have required the boards to operate as if the were businesses in ways that have degraded their ability function (stupid budget decisions regarding debt, mostly.)
Generally speaking, privatization or (at least in most cases) nationalization of anything that hasn't been run into the ground in its current configuration causes disruption far in excess of the benefit it provides, and most things will generally work best the way they were initially set up as a result. The main problem is, after all, usually the fact that humans are involved.
British Airways will be held in my heart as, probably, the worst airline I have ever flown with, together with Alitalia.
When did you fly? I've tended to find that the experience on the ground has been dreadful in recent years, but the experience in the sky has always been excellent.
This is a great channel
Truth is: nobody really knows what the right decision is.
TSTAY RICH BY SPENDING LIKE THE POOR AND HE RICH WITHOUT STOPPING THEN THE POOR STAY POOR BY SPENDING LIKE THE RICH YET NOT INVESTING LIKE THE RICH.
You're right ma,
that's why I have to start forex trading 2months ago, now am making constant profit from it
Natural, there’s a lot of math involved in forex trading,
but this is often presented in forms of daunting technical charts, indicators, patterns.
Trading systems allow you to limit the factor of emotional influence on decision-making,,
You have a very narrow understanding of economics. Governments have to do what they can to ensure that workers have a chance of a job and don't become a drain on the public purse. So a British government pushing BA or its forebears into buying British makes some sense. It just a pity that what they were forced to buy wasn't as good as the rival options, but that was mainly due to the manufacturers following too closely the demands of the airlines (BOAC in the case of the VC10 and BEA in the case of the Trident).
I'm not sure what you're advocating, but to argue against your basic premise: Once the UK airline industry was freed from political shackles, the massive drain on the public purse ceased to exist. The government monopoly was heavily subsidised, with no incentive to improve in terms of efficiencies or service. British Airways became the envy of the world, adding countless jobs to the industry, not mention the economic success of other bourgeoning UK airlines.
Being forced to buy specific products is what happens in planned, state-run economies which leads to lack of innovation, stagnation, political corruption and authoritarianism, and a complete and total drain on the ever-dwindling public purse. We have decades of data to support this. No system is perfect or without flaws, but we do know which one fares better for the vast majority of people. State-run entities tend to have poorer and more expensive services when you take into account the extra burden on the tax payer, who's left picking up the tab for the lack of efficiency, and government bureaucracy and interference.
Great video as always my main man!! Shout out to Virgin Atlantic, the best god damn airline ever! 👏👌👍💪💯
I don't think the concluding comment is necessarily fair. If you look at state run companies like Deutsche Bahn you see them today buying out smaller companies abroad to expand their empire and ultimately gain experience to feed back into the parent company. I don't think there's any reason why a state run company can't behave in a commercial manner like you suggested. It just needs good leadership and to be kept at arm's length from day-to-day politics.
Like DB buying EWS rail freight here.
I don't know much about Deutsche Bahn, but it seems like its success is owed to the fact that it is a commercial enterprise 'in all but name'. The sad fact is that state-run entities are nearly always entangled with government influence, becoming the playthings of politicians for votes, regardless of what is good for the company, and often the taxpayer. In the example of the UK airline industry, we had a state-run business with a complete monopoly offering a heavily subsidised poor service to the customer, lacking innovation or efficiencies, and worst of all, being forced to buy a specific product for political reasons.
I would have given £8000 to fly the vc10.
should one about Canadian Airlines too
It’s air Canada
I question your use of the 9-11 video footage. People are being killed as that tower falls. Just a still shot of the towers on fire would be bad enough.
The one time when Privatisation was actually effective. Airlines shouldn’t be nationalised as governments only limit their flexibility in the market. Only railways are a way of transport which should be nationalised...
The most ridiculous situation I recall was the abominable Two Airline Policy, for domedtic carriers, enacted by the Chifley Government in Australia, and not ended until the late 1980's, where the government owned TAA and private Ansett were strictly controlled and held at competitive parity (its an oxymoron, but typical of government-speak) for decades, with aircraft types, routes, pricing and scheduling all government controlled. Inefficient, expensive and pointless, especially as Labor governments favoured Ansett, despite there being a government owned competitor. Strange times, and it kept fares high.
Another great video about stuff I don't give a flying...plane.
"We'll take more care of you... Fly By the Flag!"
Always with the neoliberal criticism, it is wrong and BORING!
Tell us why
@@user-ky6vw5up9m
They LOVE deregulation.
This is libertarian fetishism, it has never worked for workers, has OFTEN worked for capitalists, I'm not a capitalist, ergo bad.
Meanwhile in the real world these airlines are HEAVILY subsidized and killing our planet!
11th Lol