Air transport, although now one of the world’s largest industries and a fundamental part of the web of commerce and communication, is still almost an infant in years. Some of us in the audience today will have been alive when the industry can have been said to have started, and the majority of us can certainly remember it as a tiny microcosm of the current worldwide system. But it is difficult to think of an industry which is not also a ‘business’ and it is open to question whether air transportation has ever been a ‘business’ in the true sense of the word. Its tools of production have very largely been subsidised (as far as their research and development costs are concerned), if one believes the manufacturers, very few of their programmes have shown satisfactory commercial output and as far as exports are concerned, most Governments have subsidised these at well below commercial rates of interest. When one adds to this a prediliction by the airlines themselves to sell their final product at less than its (unrealistically low) costs, then I believe my mystification on the financial justification for the industry is understandable. What are the real costs?