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98 HELICOPTER AIR SERVICE PROGRAM

Mr. TIPTON. That is 489,643. 

Senator MONRONEY. Thank you. 

Mr. TIPTON. Imaginative developments in passenger helicopters and lessons learned about their operation by the three subsidized carriers have brought the cost of operating a seat mile down from 63.4 cents in 1957 to 30.8 cents in 1964. Several economic indicators will show the progress being made. 

In 1957, these three helicopter lines accounted for 3,275,000 passenger-miles. For 1964, the figure was 13,819,000, up 322 percent. 

Reflecting introduction of more efficient equipment, average seats per aircraft increased from 7.6 in 1957 to 20.4 in 1964. 

The helicopter companies are showing ever-greater public acceptance and ever-growing traffic. 

The machines which are now in use are excellent and show every potential for supporting self-sufficient operations. The largest will carry 28 passengers, a third more than the capacity of the airlines' alltime success, the DC-3. 

What then is the problem? Of the many difficulties, I think you can sum up everything in the single question of reliability. On many routes, the helicopters have been missing 20 out of 100 schedules. This just isn't good enough from the passenger acceptance point of view to permit the development of the volume needed for self-sufficiency. 

I think you will be able to establish that the helicopter transport industry has every reason to believe that this problem is on he way to being solved. In the first place, delays due to weather which account for half the missed flights, can be greatly reduced by new instrument flight rules capability very recently approved by the FAA> Second, the very low time between engine overhauls now approved for the helicopter engines will be radically changed as the state of the art progresses. Mechanical delays and cancellations due to mechanicals can be drastically reduced as soon as the teething problems of the present new machines are solved. The operators will be able to discuss these two major developments in more detail, as they come before the committee. 

They look forward soon to offering service with the same regularity and reliability as the fixed-wing schedule airlines. With this regularity, the present program to reduce subsidy contemplates great expansion of the interline arrangements between helicopter companies and the scheduled airlines. Already, at the major terminals, the scheduled airlines are absorbing a substantial part of the cost to the passenger of the helicopter ticket. In New York, trunk airlines absorb up to $9.70 of the fare, in San Francisco up to $6, in Chicago and in Los Angeles up to $2.50. As helicopter service becomes more dependable, the volume of airline bookings is expected to increase substantially. 

In addition, in New York for example, some airlines, in order to guarantee service for their passengers, have agreed to underwrite a prescribed number of flights per day and passengers per flight from the Pan Am roof to Kennedy.

These activities are built into the program developed by the CAB. I, personally, feel, as a matter of principle, that this is as far as the airlines should go or be expected to go. The Congress has set out to develop a regularly scheduled helicopter service as a common carrier tool available to the general public, not just to airline passengers.