Appropriately, the first-ever edition of TTG in March 1953 carried a headline celebrating the increasing number of “Tourist Air Fares”. It’s incredible to think, but in the post-war period, governments set restrictions on air fares to keep people and their cash in the country. That meant very high air fares, and a travel allowance limiting the amount of money you could take abroad.
TTG’s first editions reported the emergence of these new tourist fares, saving an average of 25%. It was not yet the beginning of mass travel, though; a “cheap” return to Palma with BEA, flying from Northolt airport near Heathrow, still cost almost £40 – or £886 in today’s money.
Increasing the amount of money that could be spent abroad was an immediate benefit for agents, TTG reported. Before this, “too often when trying to contract for accommodation... it had been let to agents from a country with a higher travel allowance”. Britons were allowed £25, then raised to £40. But the Danes were allowed £100 and for the Swiss, it was unlimited.
General Tours (London) told TTG: “Immediately the increase was announced, a notice was displayed in our window with the result that we were flooded with enquiries.” Baldwins in Tunbridge Wells summed up the intervention: “Our impressions are that a number of people have decided that a continental holiday is now well worthwhile.”
TTG also detailed how jet travel was shrinking journey times. BOAC, then the UK’s foremost long-haul airline, cut stopover times on its Comet routes, meaning London-Singapore was reduced by two hours to 25 hours 25 minutes, with a stop in Rangoon.
The Comet was due to be tested across the Atlantic, which TTG noted “is the worst route as far as weather is concerned, and very little is known about flying conditions at 30-40,000 feet. No passengers will be carried on these flights”.
What did it all mean?
The eventual abolition of air fare protection – rates were subject to negotiation between airlines, governments and Iata – and the development of jet-engine aircraft like the Comet in this decade marked the beginning of affordable mass travel.
However, there was still a long way to go, as Iata reported that although almost 60% of transatlantic passengers purchased tourist class fares in the first three months of their introduction in 1957, a 15-day round tourist fare from London to New York was still £162 – that’s £3,100 today.
The genie was out of the bottle though, and TTG’s first 10 years ended with PanAm proposing a 39% cut in transatlantic air fares to a lead-in of £57 one-way (£1,902 return today). It’s a far cry from today’s lead-in of around £380 return, but change was well on its way.
For full access to the 70-year archive, join TTG+ by visiting ttgmedia.com/plus.
