New Need Created by Air Service
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.".! CONSIDER that ..the Licensing
• 1 Authority was entitled to regard the need for the carriage of airport traffic as substantially a new need and that, in so far as that was to be met, there would be no question of obstruc tion of traffic from existing services.
This statement was made by Mr. J. G. Leechman, Q.C., a Ministry of Trans
port in his observations on
the appeal by David MacBrayne, Ltd., against the Scottish Licensing . Authority's refusal to grant them a licence .. to operate a stage . service
between Portnahaven and .Glenegedale Airport and the grant of a licence to Messrs. J. and H. Caskie for an express service between Port Charlotte and the airport.
Mr. J. Law, for the appellants, maintained that his clients, as the established operators on the main road from the airport through Port Charlotte, should have been preferred to the respondents, who di d not operate at all between the airport and Bowmore. The air service was abstracting traffic from the steamers and, 'accordingly, there would be abstraction from MacBrayne's road services.
For the respondents, Mr. I. M. Robertson maintained that air traffic created an entirely new need so far as feeder road services were concerned. In preferring Messrs. Caskie's service, the Authority had taken into account the fact that there was no need shown for additional inter-village services. In any case there was more elasticity in a direct service to the airport atone than in one which was additionally carrying intervillage traffic.
The Minister dismissed the appeal with costs.