Case Problems in Air Transportation

Maurice J. Scarlett is a geography professor at the Memorial University
of Newfoundland.

The author is Director of the Centre for Transportation Studies at the University of British Columbia. He has had a wide and long experience of air transportation, including 26 years as an airline pilot.

The present volume is the third edition of a text originally published in 1978. It basically follows the original format and arrangement but has been enlarged from 32 studies and 246 pages to 44 studies and 377 pages. Most studies which repeat earlier versions have had cosmetic changes in text (DC 6 becomes DC 8, etc.); new and old alike combine prints of news-clippings and other evidence of verisimilitude with fictional problems.

The fact that this text has now run to a third edition is probably evidence enough of its suitability for teaching, though it is curious that neither in its original nor in its new edition is there mention of who and what it is intended for. Nor is it made clear why it addresses only air transportation: those who know and use it don’t need to be told; those who don’t, perhaps have no need. Altogether, this text can be welcomed on the same terms as its 1978 original: it does well, in an interesting and informative way, what it sets out to do. A minor, but not insignificant, merit is its recognition that airlines and their problems are not confined to the United States, so that students are saved from the usual solid (and myopic) diet of American experience.