Talk:Laker Airways

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This article is overrun with POV and I will work in the coming days to re-focus it on the facts regarding the airline and not various "experts'" opinions. -Drdisque 03:42, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Before you start changing anything, I suggest you read up on the relevant passages in the books cited as sources for this article. I have compared the relevant sections in these books with what you describe as being overrun with "POVs" and too many "experts'" opinions. What's wrong with including experts' opinions on the reasons for an airline's commercial and operational performance, as long as these are verifiable, especially if the sources are those airlines' owners/promoters themselves. In my opinion this article is much better than some of the other aviation-related articles I happened to come across on Wikipedia, which don't mention anything about the company's business model and corporate strategy and seem to be written by plane spotters for plane spotters (for example, by listing the registrations of each and every aircraft operated throughout the firm's entire history or silly arguments in the discussion page whether that airline operated five or six aircraft of a particular aircraft type 25 years ago). Also, let's not forget that not everyone who is accessing Wikipedia to read an article about a specific airline is a plane spotter. In fact, a good number of people (including some I personally know) do this for educational purposes, i.e. using the relevant Wikipedia article as an additional source for their studies. In this context, it can really be very helpful to get some background information about the reasons that are said to have contributed to the rise or fall of the business concerned. Therefore, to be frank, I do not share your opinion. In each case (i.e. 'Redrawing traditional battle lines', 'Strategic mistakes', 'Lasting impact on the industry') the author[s] has/have just attempted to describe in their own words what was written in those books. In addition to the books listed as sources at the end of this article, may I also recommend reading up the relevant sections in Simon Calder's book entitled "The truth behind the low-cost revolution" [Calder, Simon (2002). No Frills - The Truth behind the Low-cost Revolution in the Skies. Virgin Books. ISBN 1-8522-7932-X] as well as Sir Richard Branson's autobiography "Losing my virginity", Graham M. Simon's book "It was nice to fly with friends! The story of Air Europe" [Simons, Graham M. (1999). It was nice to fly with friends! The story of Air Europe. GMS Enterprises. ISBN 1-8703-8469-5] and the late Sir Adam Thomson's account of his time as a promoter, chairman and CEO of both the original Caledonian Airways in the 1960s and its successor British Caledonian in the 1970s and '80s [Thomson, Adam (1999). High Risk: The Politics of the Air. Sidgwick and Jackson. ISBN 0-2839-9599-8]?

Just to give you a few relevant examples:

The book entitled "Fly me, I'm Freddie" cited at the end of this article contains a relevant section explaining in detail that it was British Caledonian (BCal), the next-door neighbour of the late Sir Freddie Laker's Laker Airways at Gatwick, which opposed his Skytrain plans far more vigorously than wholly government-owned British Airways (BA) at the time because BCal felt that this would constrain its future development as the UK's leading private sector scheduled carrier by undermining the UK Government's "Second Force" policy and thus denying BCal whatever limited opportunities there were in those days for privately owned airlines to operate fully fledged, international scheduled services. This therefore constituted "re-drawing traditional battle lines" between the private and state sector in the UK airline industry during that period, as described in the relevant section of this article.

Simon Calder's book "The truth behind the low-cost revolution" as well as Sir Richard Branson's autobiography ("Losing my virginity") contain a relevant citation of the late Sir Freddie Laker's advice to Richard Branson at the time of Virgin Atlantic's inception during the early 1980s "not to repeat his mistake and build his business on economy passengers alone" because it would make him more vulnerable to his rivals running a mixed-class service, where higher yield premium passengers [cross-]subsidised lower yield leisure travellers, especially during less busy periods (compare relevant statement in this article's "strategic mistakes" section). The former also quotes the late Sir Freddie telling Richard Branson during Virgin Atlantic's formative era that he would have to "compete with Pan Am and TWA, and with British Airways and British Caledonian [across the Atlantic]. They have more money than you." This statement refers to the competitive response of Laker Airways' main rivals to that airline's Skytrain service on the major transatlantic air routes and is an indirect admission that part of the reason Laker Airways did not succeed with Skytrain in the long run was that the airline was undercapitalised in relation to its principal competitors (compare sections entitled "seeds of company's downfall", "causes of bankruptcy").

Both the late Sir Adam Thomson's book ("High Risk: The Politics of the Air.") as well as Graham M. Simon's book "It was nice to fly with friends! The story of Air Europe" also contain the late Sir Adam's quotes in relation to Laker's Skytrain weakening BCal by undermining that airline's long-term ability to acquire the economies of scale to compete with its generally much bigger rivals in numerous places. (For instance, following the CAA's decision to award Laker Airways a licence to run a daily Skytrain service between Gatwick and Los Angeles in preference to BCal's rival application, and the UK Government's subsequent decision to designate Laker as the UK's second flag carrier on that route under the Bermuda II UK-US air services agreement (thereby blocking BCal's access to the aforesaid route), "we decided that from now on we would keep an eagle eye on Freddie" ('we' in this context refers to the late Sir Adam and the other members of BCal's contemporary board of directors [compare "redrawing traditional battle lines"]).

Finally, in "Fly me, I'm Freddie" there also numerous quotes attributed to the late Sir Freddie himself during his time as managing director of British United Airways (BUA) during the early 1960s, then the UK's largest wholly privately owned, "Independent" airline, that relate to his first-hand experience of the extent to which other IATA member airlines (in those days predominantly wholly or majority government owned flag carriers) were prepared to go to stifle any meaningful competition with them, especially from private sector airlines that were run along commercial lines without recourse to a government department that would assume any financial liabilities or losses, such as BUA itself. The relevant quotes do support this article's statement that Laker's then "revolutionary" Skytrain concept did indeed 'set in motion an irreversible trend to liberate the air transport industry from the "regulatory straightjacket" IATA had imposed on it for decades in collusion with governments' (compare "lasting impact on the industry"). Pimpom123 17:30, 12 June 2007 (GMT) and 09.20, 13 June 2007 (GMT)

I've now added the additional titles that are the sources of the statements that you have flagged up as POVs in the "reference" section of this article. Pimpom123 10:15, 13 June 2007 (GMT)

I assume you wrote most of this article. I agree that most of Wikipedia's aviation coverage is written "by plane spotters for plane spotters", but this article comes across as something written by an enthusiast of Laker Airways, for an enthusiast of Laker Airways. It seems odd to put "Skytrain" in quotes all through the text. I'm worried about the way that large sections are in brackets, especially square brackets, and it seems bad form to have parenthetical sections within parenthetical sections (e.g. at the end of "660 new "Skytrain" routes to Europe proposed"). I'm not sure that words like "incredibly" or "interestingly" or "unfortunately" add to the article. I'm sure you could shorten the section on weight-saving measures. The "Faster Climbs" section ends with a non-sequitur; it doesn't explain, based on the information given, how Laker's aircraft achieved a greater rate of climb. I understand a desire not to use paragraph breask on a talk page, but they benefit an article. I understand why you have put figures of speech and colloquialisms in quotes, but I think it would be best to not have them at all. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 11:00, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have taken out the POV tags because I feel they're really not justified after referring to referenced sources at bottom of article. PussyCat_369 1:15, 15 June 2007 (UCT)

Have also added additional, relevant hyperlinks. PussyCat_369 3:30, 16 June 2007 (UCT)

date[edit]

In the accidents secton. Could we have a date for the Klagenfurt incident> — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.10.158.218 (talk) 18:18, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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In Popular Culture/Media[edit]

In the movie Futureworld (1976), Laker Airways provides travel to and from the fantasy resort of Delios. It mentioned in public address announcement at the end of the movie and an interior of a Laker Airways 747 is used in the beginning. The Laker Airways logo was clearly visible on the seat headrests.

I lack the proper editing and documenting skills to properly change the official entry. I am hopeful somebody in possession of those skills can add this bit of trivia to the article.

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