From HSA: Truth or Evasion

The Harvard Student Agencies' Board of Directors has recognized--somewhat belatedly--that the Harvard community deserves answers to the questions raised about its charter-flight operations. A three-man committee of the Board will prepare a report discussing charges that the HSA has violated international charter regulations and that its fares for European flights are excessive. But the report will be satisfactory only if it is frank and detailed, and advance indications are hardly optimistic.

Up to a point the HSA's case is arguable. The withdrawal of the British Overseas Airways Corporation from the charter market undoubtedly caused the Charter Flights Agency a great deal of hardship. The HSA has always obtained its planes from University Travel Service, and UTS has always dealt exclusively with BOAC. This year, bargaining with reluctant and unfamiliar companies, the UTS probably incurred higher prices.

But why did Harvard retain its tics with UTS? Other Boston agencies have in the past spread their goodwill to airlines other than BOAC and might have this year secured the HSA contracts with airlines cheaper than Air France and Swissair. We do not know. The HSA report should treat this issue directly and in great detail.

The second important, and presently cloudy, issue concerns the fares the HSA charges. The International Air Transport Association requires that prospective passengers be given estimates of expected costs and that detailed financial statements be issued after every flight. Whether or not the HSA believes itself exempt from these regulations--and it certainly should explain its position--it has an obligation to the community to furnish the information.

Although any estimate of the amount that the HSA charges for administrative expenses must be guesswork, the most informed guesses put the figure at a level far above what IATA considers acceptable. Where does the money go? If the HSA is using charter flight receipts to subsidized unprofitable agencies, it is not only violating another IATA rule, but it is abusing the monopoly position that Harvard has given it.

So far, the HSA's only explanation has come from General Manager Dustin M. Burke '52 According to Burke, much of the extra administrative expense is compensation for the time he and General Counsel Harold Rosenwald spent last summer trying to find planes. It is hard to understand, however, how the extra hours put in by two salaried officers could legitimately account for expenses as high as the HSA's seem to be.

Last week's meeting of the HSA directors apparently left many of them convinced that there is no need to publish actual accounts. On the contrary, nothing less than photostats of the HSA's contracts with each airline, and a complete summary of its own expenses, will silence the "unfair criticism" of which it complains. And nothing less than complete annual reports will avert the indefinite repetition of this year's controversy.