Viewing page 112 of 507
This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.
104 HELICOPTER AIR SERVICE PROGRAM Mr. TIPTON. I am saying the airlines must spend money for the airborne equipment to go with the ground equipment. Senator MONRONEY. Airplanes, since the beginning, had to have altimeters, now DME, and other things which have gone in. Mr. TIPTON. They don't come free. Senator MONRONEY. Let's not cry over the fact you put in DME and a few other things that let you get there in time and let you know what your ETA is going to be. Mr. TIPTON. I am not crying about that. I am making the point of let's not spend this airline money too many times. Senator MONRONEY. I am not asking you to. I am asking you to spend a little bit all at once. We are in hock about $50 million up to now on helicopters, and we are at the end of our rope, and the House says, no, sir, no more helicopters get out this year. They don't say next year. They don't say 5 years, as the CAB does. They say this year. Mr. TIPTON. You asked for a discussion of that and I answered your question by discussing something else. Now let me - Senator MONRONEY. Something else was the air traffic control system that you assumed responsibility for, and I still say that is the FAA's responsibility, and we are spending plenty of millions of dollars on it. I hope we can keep it improving. Mr. TIPTON. Let me reiterate, this has caused us to spend money in improvements, too. Now about the obligation or the propriety of the airlines to support helicopters. Let me start with comments made by the Department of Commerce, and to a certain extent by Mr. Halaby. They both rather thought that the helicopter was a useful thing, both of them. Even the Department of Commerce things it is a useful thing. But they were convinced that the other methods could be adopted to eliminate the necessity for subsidy by the Federal Government. Let me put that in proportion for a minute. In 1965 the commercial revenues of the three helicopter companies will be about $6 million, it is estimated. Their subsidy would otherwise have been $47,300,000 about. Their total revenues would have been about $10,300,000. All of this money, all of it is spent. No profit is contemplated. Consequently, the net effect of the administration program would be to eliminate, like that [snapping fingers], 42 percent, approximately, of the revenue of these three carriers. It just seems plain to me - that the carriers will spell this out in more detail than I - it seems plain to me that those carriers cannot continue to conduct a developmental common carrier operation with 42 percent of their revenue suddenly gone. Senator MONRONEY. You are not hitting the worse phase of this. You are hitting the best possible phase. The worse phase is the declaration of the House, and by indirection the Senate, which is not quite in keeping with protocol between the two bodies, where the House conferees were in favor of abolishing it as of this year, and the majority of the Senate conferees also were in favor of it, according to the House report. I happened to have been in that conference and I don't intend to reveal what goes on in the conference, but the statement that is made is indicative of some serious trouble you have no for a 5-year
