AVIATION: Comet Ahead

At a conference of the International Air Transport Association in San Francisco last week, British Overseas Airways’ Chairman Sir Miles Thomas let out some jet-hot news. “This time next year,” said Sir Miles, B.O.A.C. will have a commercial jet passenger liner on its London-Australia route. It will be the new 36-passenger De Havilland Comet (TIME, Jan. 2). B.O.A.C. expects that the 500 m.p.h. plane will cut the flying time for the 12,000-mile route from 68 to 33 hours.

B.O.A.C., which expects to start taking delivery in three months on an order for 14 Comets, is already lengthening the landing strips on fields along the London-Rome -Cairo -India -Singapore -Australia route to handle the jet plane. At present, Sir Miles held that high fuel consumption and airport congestion make jet transports impractical on routes to such airports as La Guardia. Said he: “No matter what the U.S. does, we’re 18 months ahead of the rest of the world.” (U.S. aircraft builders at the conference agreed; the U.S. does not have a single commercial jet transport plane abuilding.)

As a fillip to the news from Sir Miles, I.A.T.A.’s Director General Sir William Hildred reported on the fast growth of world aviation. In 1949 scheduled airlines:

¶ Flew 875 million aircraft miles, the equivalent of 35,000 trips around the equator, and 10% more than the year before.

¶ Carried 27 million passengers, an increase of 3,000,000, for a total of 15 billion passenger miles, a 15% gain.

¶ Hauled 370 million ton-miles of cargo, a “spectacular” gain of 20%.