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214  HELICOPTER AIR SERVICE PROGRAM

guarantees all of our expenses, including a return on our investment, $115 per one-way trip.

What is more, that number is subject to escalation either up or down, depending on historical experience.  So that it is, from a practical point of view, an absolute guarantee of a nonloss situation.  

Senator MONRONEY. That would be a great help to you if that were done, generally speaking, from the Battery, or wherever you make your Wall Street landings.  Do you have a Wall Street landing? 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes, Sir.

Senator MONRONEY. Where is that?

Mr. CUMMINGS. For this purpose it is at the foot of Wall Street.  It is at the foot of a thing called Coentes Slip in New York. I don't think many people have heard of Coentes Slip and they have heard of Wall Street.

Senator MONRONEY. Does it produce good revenue traffic?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes, it does, but the problem now is that it short-hauls our service between Newark and Kennedy, so that we haven't pushed it as hard as we expect to very shortly.  I want to tell you about that in a minute.

The fact that we have such arrangements as I have just described with TWA and, generally speaking, a similar arrangement with Pan American, and with nobody else at this point, is directly attributable to the conference language that came out last August about the elimination of the Helicopter subsidy.

We had at that time, and we still have pending, negotiations with six or seven other airlines for exactly similar type arrangements, guaranteed revenues, on routes, not only from the Pan American roof, because that is in limited supply, if you like, but also on other routes, suburban routes which we are not now operating.

Senator MONRONEY. You mean this is now operating in reverse. In other words, the adamant position taken by the House, that it should not extend beyond the end of this fiscal year, has destroyed the negotiations that were underway for cooperative assistance in flying these helicopter routes; is that correct?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Our ability to help ourselves in this matter has come to a screeching halt as a result of the language included in the Conference report.  There is no question whatever about it.  It was absolutely synchronized with it.

Senator MONRONEY. Could we put this in reverse and maybe use what is a fact? I think if we don't find something new, we are up against a dead end street.

Mr. CUMMINGS. This is my proposal at this point, which I think does help to solve the problem, although I haven't had adequate opportunity to discuss it with the other people in my industry.

Senator MONRONEY. Before you go on that, could I ask you if this uncertainty also affects your financing costs, the costs of getting your money, your operating interest rates?

Mr. CUMMINGS. I am very glad you asked that question. Just about a year ago we started giving consideration, active consideration-we considered it almost without cease -to increasing our capital resources.

We launched a $1,484,000 debenture program in the month of May.  We had sold $903,000 of that when this unfortunate language was perpetrated and, again, that has not only come to a stop, but