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30      HELICOPTER AIR SERVICE PROGRAM

a great deal of difficulties, I think principally due to the fact that these are short-haul operations whereas the transport engines were built for long-haul operations and it has taken a couple of years to work the bugs out of the short-haul engine. But these have been effectively overcome. In the same general area there has been a great deal of difficulty with vibration as a result of jet engines, the harmonics, which I don't pretend to understand. These have been pretty effectively dampened out. This means less maintenance costs for the future.

Senator MONRONEY. You also have the larger load-carrying capacity which 2 pilots flying the 5 or 6 passengers, or 2 pilots flying 40 or 50, will make quite a dent in this, would it not?

Mr. BOYD. Absolutely.

Senator MONRONEY. And the operational overhead and the station overhead and ground overhead also diminishes as these helicopters get larger and can carry larger capacities.

Mr. BOYD. That is right. And the carriers get greater reliability in performing their flight operations. They will generate more traffic.

Senator MONRONEY. Using a guessing game, supposing a helicopter company were to come to Washington, D.C., and it made a proposition to the CAB on the need for subsidies. Supposing they would say we have an agreement with one of the airlines which feels that its job is to deliver passengers downtown from the airport at the earliest possible time as well as giving them movies en route or free liquor en route, and they would offer to pay, say, $5 of the helicopter ticket from Dulles International or from Friendship International-though I am not proposing to cut Friendship out, I am merely trying to unify the complex of the three airports with downtown Washington. Suppose they would say we intend to sell a ticket for $5 to the passenger plus what the normal bus fare would be, which might be $6.75, say, for example. I don't know what the bus fare is out to Dulles. I always drive out there when I go to Dulles. I use my own car, and I leave it out there. I manage to catch a flight always to Friendship Airport coming back, which makes for inconvenience. You are as far timewise from your car on arrival as you were airwise from Dallas to Dulles.

Suppose we were to say the bus fare is $2, to make it simple. So the passenger pays $5 for the helicopter service, and $2 for the bus service. That is $7. You perhaps might be subsidizing that air passenger by $2.50 or $3. Suppose you were able to do that and another $2.50 or $3 or even $5 from the airline, would that be a fair degree-off the top of your head-of profit sharing or cost sharing?

In other words, the passenger $5, the airline $5, and the Government $5.

Mr. BOYD. Yes, sir, as far as I am concerned, that would be. I cannot speak for the interests of the airlines.

Senator MONRONEY. Getting to my next question, would not the fact that the passenger who will buy a ticket for $5 plus $2, the normal bus transportation, where it is costing him $7, wouldn't this low fare greatly increase traffic? What I am trying to say is, is the high level of helicopter tickets to and from the airport one of the reasons why we are not getting as much traffic perhaps as the planes are capable of carrying-that the helicopters are capable of carrying?

Mr. BOYD. I am sure of this, that we would feel there is an elasticity of demand. It is a fair elasticity, certainly.