The Independent Airlines

Extract

I was glad to be asked to talk to the Graduates’ and Students’ Section of the Society because, in the years to come, it is you who will be carrying some of the responsibility for developing the air transport industry of this country to extents which will make today's efforts appear puny. In an industry which is doubling in size every five years—a fourfold increase during the next decade—it is important that we get the structure right. There is a chance to do this now, while the whole future of British commercial aviation is under review that may not, indeed should not, occur again for many years. Change inevitably brings disruption and upheaval but some re-organisation and re-orientation is essential if the industry is to have an expansive but reasonably stable future bringing greater efficiency, higher profitability and enhanced benefits to the national economy. The recent White Paper Civil Aviation Policy holds out little prospect that, under a Socialist Government, these aims will be fully realised in the Seventies.