EAST KENT LOSES FIGHT AGAINST 'PREFERENCE'
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IlE'Minister of Transport has turned down appeals by the East Kent Road Car Co. Ltd. against decisions of the Metropolitan Traffic Commissioner granting Valiant Direct Coaches Ltd. express carriage services between London and Manston Airport.
Both appeals concern services provided under contract to organizers of inclusive tours to the Continent. East Kent is licensed to provide such services between Victoria Coach Station and Man ston and many of its stage services in Kent are unremunerative.
both Pegasus Holidays (Piccadilly) Ltd., But who organize exclusive tours to the Netherlands and the Rhineland, and Garrow-Fisher Tours (Knightsbridge) Ltd., who organize tours to Greece, prefer to employ Valliant.
In the case of Pegasus, this is chiefly because Valliant is able to quote substantially lower— but economic—rates than East Kent. Valliant's rates to Garrow-Fisher are higher than East Kent's; but Garrow-Fisher prefers Valliant because of previous satisfactory experience and because Valliant, unlike East Kent, could provide immediately luxury coaches with reclining seats and comparable in standard with those employed by Garrow-Fisher on the Continent.
"The Minister agrees generally with the Commissioner and the Inspector that if other things are equal it may well be right to license remunerative work of this kind to the operator providing stage services in the area, notwithstanding a contractual arrangement otherwise; but that where a tour organizer gives valid reasons for choosing one operator in preference to another his wishes should not be set aside solely because the other runs unremunerative services in the area."