ARGENTINA: The British Are Coming

The bomb-chesty body of a four-engined Lancastrian (converted Lancaster bomber) rumbled up Buenos Aires’ Morón airport, rose easily over the Plata estuary, and shrank into the east. A good turnout of proud British clapped politely. Regular biweekly service from Argentina to London (via Montevideo, Rio, Natal, Bathurst, Lisbon), by the soon-to-be-nationalized British South American Airways (B.S.A.A.), had begun.

By grit and by gumption, the British had got off to a head start on the South Atlantic haul. All they had last week was a temporary permit from Perón to fly into Argentina, six serviceable Lancastrians (carrying only 13 passengers on the long Atlantic hop), and a staff that was ex-R.A.F. But the only point-to-point competition for B.S.A.A.’s 55-hour, $705 service so far came from Pan American’s $921 dogleg via New York.

B.S.A.A., with the old British fire in its pink Socialist eye, talked about 24-hour service from London to rival Pan American’s projected one-day Constellation schedule from New York to Buenos Aires. Last week, B.S.A.A.’s glamor boy and general manager, Air Vice Marshal Donald Bennett, was reported souping up a Mosquito in London to show that it could be done.