ABSTRACT
Long before the end of the Second World War it had become quite obvious that when peace eventually arrived a new civil aviation policy would be required. Consequently, upon his appointment as the first Minister of Civil Aviation in October 1944, Viscount Swinton rapidly set about preparing the necessary blueprint. The document that emerged, known as the Swinton Plan, was presented to Parliament as a White Paper in March 1945.' Although published by the Coalition Government the Plan shows all the signs of being a Conservative brain-child. Before the war Tory policy, as evolved by Mr Kingsley Wood, had favoured the concentration of the nation's effort in the international field behind a single, publicly-owned airline, leaving most domestic and charter services to private enterprise.2 The British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) was therefore established in 1939 with the exclusive right to receive a State subsidy for overseas services. In the post-war world, however, the Government felt that a single 'chosen instrument' would be too unwieldy to
operate efficiently and instead proposed three new Corporations linked together by a common denominator, the participation of BO AC.
