Aer Lingus advertising and Publicity Departments were busy at 58 Upper O’Connell ensuring the event’s success, which was largely attributed to the personal charisma of Aer Lingus CEO Jerry Dempsey.
IATA William Hildred said in his report to the event that if overall load factor had been the same in 1961 as it had been in 1960, revenues would have made a $80m profit instead of the $140m loss recorded: “If all the airlines had, without exception, received the amount of cash shown on the face of the tickets and waybills they issued, after the payment of normal commissions, instead of what they did take in, the operating result would have been considerably better.”
Sales distribution at Aer Lingus had the responsibility of ensuring that Airline Pennants were received and set on the tables for the meeting on time. The An Post Customs Office in Nth. Frederick Street required Aer Lingus staff attend as they opened the packages to verify their contents, perhaps to avoid anything illegal being imported.
IATA operated like a cartel at the time, with agreed fares and non-competition agreements between airlines. So called “illegal” fare cutting was not part of the official programme, but the subject of enforcement officers (more than 20 of them) appointed by IATA.Mr Hildred report noted: “just as it is true that, while there may be a few malefactors in Dublin, its law-abiding citizens are better off for having the police around, so it is true that the airlines are better off for having IATA around.”
Much of the after hours discourse was about preventing fare-cutting and a prospective consolidation amongst Europe’s big carriers, as the following account reveals:
An American became quite incensed with the protestations of an Asian who declares that he cannot take responsibility for the discount ticket selling of a salesman. “Well then,” says the American, “get rid of him.” “I can’t,” comes the reply, “he’s an American.”
At the evening reception in the sumptuous state rooms of Dublin Castle, an Arab delegate has a good laugh at a European’s leg-pull about fare-cutting, and an even bigger one when another airline man describes his chairman as “a man who goes into a swing door behind you and comes out in front.”
Everyone gets on well together: Communist delegates and American delegates. Arabs and Jews—even, as an Irishman remarked, the Irish and the British. There is an answer to those who, between mouthfuls of Galway Bay Oysters and Glazed Castlebar Bacon, or between visits to a horse-jumping show at Powerscourt and a cruise round Dublin Bay, wonder whether the hospitality might perhaps be a little too lavish.
In fact, there are two answers: first, Ireland has a tourist industry, as indeed has every country where these annual meetings are held. What better opportunity to show off the country’s attractions than at the summit meeting of the producers of air transport? Secondly, the Irish are an immensely hospitable and friendly people. Once the “annual host airline” principle is established, national hospitality—like airline cabin service—is something which IATA cannot easily control.
Whether this principle, like the old economy class sandwich, is falling victim to runaway quality competition may well be something for IATA’s executive committee to consider for future years. No one would suggest that these meetings should be held, like the current fares conference at Chandler, Arizona, in the middle of a desert, to ensure that delegates are not distracted by the fleshpots of a social calendar. There has to be a social side; nevertheless, a formula could perhaps be found for regulating hospitality competition.
Many of the big aircraft manufacturers had representatives discreetly located in Dublin to coincide with the meeting, which of course offers a unique opportunity for direct approaches to the Top People who sign contracts. Officially, aircraft salesmen are personae non gratae at IATA annual meetings; the behaviour of some in years gone by was considered unbearably importunate, and in 1959 an edict went forth to the manufacturers that gatecrashers would not be welcome in future.
Some members of IATA have never agreed with this policy, and this year BEA caused one or two eyebrows to be raised by sponsoring demonstration flights at Dublin of the de Havilland Trident (in which, among other aircraft, including the BAC One-Eleven, the host airline is interested). BEA and de Havilland were most discreet, and there was a fair response to invitations. But in the event the demonstration flights were spoiled by bad weather—though a large contingent of delegates had enjoyed their Trident flight over from London Heathrow on the eve of the meeting.
Official IATA business did not touch upon the topic of mergers, though it was the subject of much shoptalk. It seemed pretty clear that much of the fire has gone out of Air Union. One delegate in Air Union said simply: “It will take another six years.” Another thought that the whole structure of the union would now have to be renegotiated.
Another felt that, notwithstanding Lord Douglas’s description of Air Union as a “nest of Kilkenny cats fighting each other over shares of traffic,” the British airlines would eventually move with the rest of British industry into the Common Market. The attitude of an Air France delegate to British participation in Air Union was a simple “Why not?” He was certain Air Union would come in the end. From the non-French members of Air Union, however, it was pretty clear that President de Gaulle is far from happy about the Union in its present form.”
