AIR FREIGHT DEMANDS
Page 59
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Continued from page 54
The purchase of a small B-licensed haulage business situated close to the airport brought Bowles into the ranks of the hauliers proper, but only a year later he met serious opposition—resolved at a Road and Rail Negotiating Committee meeting with the exception of objections by F. V. Carroll Ltd.—when he applied to the Metropolitan Licensing Authority to add a vehicle to the licence.
After a hearing in London the application was successful but, in the meantime, Bowles had realized the advantage of operating minibuses for the carriage of air freight-eminently suitable vehicles for carrying small packages. Legal advice confirmed that such vehicles could be operated without carriers' licences and the Flower Freight test case, which eventually went to the Court of Appeal, established the right to operate minibuses with large roof racks on which goods could be carried, without goods vehicle licences--always provided the vehicles were in no way converted into goods vehicles.
Meanwhile the Bowles fleet was growing. Eight minibuses were in operation without goods vehicle licences— although Bowles made several attempts to have the vehicles properly licensed as goods vehicles under the control, so far as licensing was concerned, of the local Licensing Authority. Time and time again application was made for B licences; time and time again it was suggested by the objectors that the vehicles were operating illegally and that Bowles had entered the industry in an unorthodox manner via "the backdoor" views that were subscribed to by the Metropolitan deputy Licensing Authority, Mr. C. I. Macdonald, who even refused an application that had been remitted back to him by the Transport Tribunal.
All this is legal case history and Roy Bowles Transport has been accepted-even by the Licensing Authority—as an established carrier of air freight. With a fleet totalling 70-plus vehicles (30 of which are minibuses) working under A and B licences, Roy Bowles can be said to have brought a new look to the business of air freight carrying. His vehicles operate a round-the-clock service, being linked to base, which last year moved from Hounslow to Hayes, by Pye radio telephone. Always there are four drivers on standby at Hayes, while others are on telephone standby at their homes. With a 40 miles radius radio-telephone link vehicles can be contacted for picking up loads, or diverting, at the flick of a switch.
Possibly one of the biggest differences between air freight haulage and road haulage proper is the method of charging. Customers, in the main, are the agents. Because of the smallness and the value and urgency of the traffic, the vehicle is hired out in toto. Never is a rate based on weight. Often the vehicles are hired by airlines to transport goods, in bond, between one part of the airport and another (which can involve a considerable amount of mileage). Sometimes vehicles have to run on to the airport apron, right alongside the aircraft, and this is why flame traps have to be fitted to the vehicle exhausts.
The Bowles fleet has carried every imaginable kind of consignment—from packages of football pools from Nigeria and Kenya, to baby elephants. A typical kind of package which can be desperately urgent and important is the oil sample—which consists of a tin or bottle containing a pint of crude oil which has been loaded in a tanker in the Middle East. Analysis determines the destination of the vessel in Europe. Delay could cause a tanker company thousands of pounds. There is the lighter though equally important side of air freight haulage such as the carriage of Princess Margaret's wedding cakes, and always there are the flowers and gifts from abroad for the royal households, not to mention fan mail for the Beatles and filming equipment for shooting "Cleopatra ".
Despite his age, Roy Bowles—now a successful businessman and haulier in his own right—worries about the future. "Where will it all end ", he ponders. Air freight is growing so fast that he wonders if—like London's traffic congestion—the airports will strangle themselves with the weight of traffic. Certainly congestion is a major problem at Heathrow at the moment, and BEA admit quite freely that they recently had to place an embargo on traffic coming in for export, so congested were their sheds. Indeed, as photographs contained elsewhere in this journal will confirm, the queues of vehicles waiting to load and offload at the BEA sheds is reminiscent of a scene at London Docks, although, to be fair to the Airport authorities, a flO m. air freight village is under construction.
Possibly the finest compliment that can be paid to the Bowles organization has been the recent announcement by Anglo Continental Container Services of a new air container service between London and Belfast. At the London end, Bowles is the carrier, having spent the best part of a year carrying experimental loads to the aircraft.
Perhaps this is the appropriate note on which to end— with the reference to containers—for it is in these, whether the airlines like it or not, that the future of air transport lies. Bowles, and all air freight carriers, will have to make provision for these, even to the extent of switching to articulation—though, to quote Roy Bowles on this question: "This, at the moment, is the last thing I want to do ".