big enough share of the traffic available to make viable the really cheap fare they want. The single coupon fare would anyway be against the interests of S E Asian carriers and, by excluding any provision for stopovers, would damage South-East Asian tourist interests. would thus attract, without the underlying rationale of the favoured alternative, the same or nearly the same objections.
It
(ii) The introduction of whole plane charters of the
Laker type. This had been rejected because it would enable the charters to cream off the low fare traffic, thus increasing the problems of the scheduled carriers in maintaining a reasonable level of all-the-year-round on-demand services. Also there were a number of widely separated important traffic centres in Australia and it was vital that the new low fares should be available to all of them; this could only be satisfactorily done through scheduled services.
4 In discussion, however the Australians did not stick rigidly to the proposals which they presented and were flexible on a number of points. They agreed that the new low fare should be available on an individual basis, instead of sale through tour wholesalers on a charter basis, as they had originally proposed. They were receptive to the proposal that BA flights might call at two Australian cities instead of the one originally envisaged, subject to examination of the effect on costs and agreed to consider the related issue of revenue pooling by BA and Qantas. They. were willing to consider making exceptions for cargo; and also for Concorde, which would not be able to operate viably to Australia without the ability to pick up and set down passengers en route. They also agreed to consider further how to accommodate our need to continue BA's services between the UK and New Zealand via Australia which are politically important to us and which
We must ensure are incompatible with the Australian scheme. that the New Zealanders are informed at the right moment of what is afoot.
5 On the other hand they were inflexible on charters, which they claimed would be incompatible with their proposals. Whilst we think that a large charter presence on the route would be seriously detrimental to the maintenance of adequate and viable on-demand services to the principal Australian cities we remain to be convinced that there is not room for a small charter presence that would act as a competitive stimulus to the scheduled operators without prejudicing to any appreciable extent the aims the Australians set out to achieve in their proposals.