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FRIENDSHIP NEWS
President's monthly message to the Members

Dear Member,

Many major airlines seem to be in dire financial straits.  You might be asking why.  Back in 1968 when I founded the Friendship Associations to promote friendship between the peoples of the old English-speaking commonwealth, I quickly found that most of the members had family in these faraway countries.  One of the main reasons that they joined the Association was an endeavour to get


Stuart Weaving

reasonable fares that they might visit their families.  At that time I had been in business on my own some fifteen years and during that period I had enjoyed a considerable amount of success.  On behalf of the members I approached the major airlines, British Airways, South African Airways and Qantas to negotiate special fares for our members, anticipating two or three thousand travellers during the first year.  I was absolutely shocked by the attitude of these airlines, who were part of a cartel fixing fares and also fixing commissions for travel agencies at nine per cent.  They would not even talk to me as I was not a travel agent, so I immediately bought a small travel agency and went back to the airlines with my proposed volumes but it was like talking to a stone wall, "nine percent and that's all whether you have one thousand or ten thousand passengers".  This was contrary to all my business instincts and a situation that I refused to accept.  I promptly went around a number of other airlines and found in particular, Sabena and Iberia were particularly interested to have our business.  One of my businesses at the time was publishing, Western Sporting Press, Welsh Rugby Magazine, Welsh Boxing and also a licence to publish the fixtures of the 92 football league clubs as well as a number of smaller publications.  I also had an exhibition company which organised exhibitions in Cardiff, Birmingham and Blackpool.  I approached the marketing side of Sabena and Iberia and asked them if they would spend money on my publications and exhibitions and they both agreed to spend, with my publishing companies, up to 20 per cent of the value of the airline tickets bought through our travel agency.  My companies then contributed fifteen per cent towards each airline ticket bought through the Associations.  This scheme produced a massive increase in the membership and in the second year we arranged over twenty thousand reunions to far flung parts.

After two years and thousands of members travelling on European carriers the major airlines came to the party and this was the breaking of the cartel on price fixing, which has brought about a massive reduction in air fares.  In real terms the economy fares slashed from ten weeks average wages in 1968 to two weeks wages today.  My new partners, British Airways, South African Airways and Qantas were not happy about our control of a substantial amount of the reunion market.  Subsequently, in 1976 they launched their own reunion clubs, appointing paid secretaries with many perks, in many major towns and cities in the UK and spending over two million pounds on the launch in order to take members away from our Association and control the market themselves, obviously with an ambition to create a new cartel and jack up the fares.  Two years and a further million pounds later they accepted failure and asked me if I would take over their membership and service their members as they wished to close the operation and not pour any more money down the drain.  The main reason they failed was that their sole objective was to put passengers on seats, to make profits for the airlines and cut serious opposition.  There was no over-riding caring attitude, merely the hard-nosed bottom line that exists with all airlines today.  They care little about the individual, what they want is just your money.

The aforementioned is the reason why the Friendship Associations have thrived over the past 42 years.  We care about you, the member.  As you will have noted we have introduced further caring benefits for our members who book through the Association, not only do you get a fare comparable with anything on the market, but we have introduced a Serious Accident Emergency Travel Benefit covering you and your nominee for the duration of your trip.  Our staff are there to assist you with your arrangements and be there  to solve any problems you might have.  The South African members can have a free mobile phone whilst in South Africa.  We have introduced a number of other benefits to make you feel at ease when booking through the Membership Associations.  We recognise that after your house and your car, probably your reunion trip is the next highest spend you have.  Therefore, it is so important that you are looked after properly.

If you are not planning to travel this year still keep up your membership for the other valuable benefits, including the Emergency Accident Benefit, Gift Schemes, Free Flight Draws and just belonging to what I am proud to call one of the most caring organisations you will ever be part of.

Regards.


STUART WEAVING,
Founder & International President

PS: My eyes are improving all the time.

Click here to read extracts of the speech made by Stuart Weaving at the Friendship Associations fortieth anniversary banquet

Click here for "Ambassador of Friendship" by Frederick Cleary, Foreign editor “The Star” Johannesburg

Click here for extracts from a speech made by Stuart Weaving, Office of the Order of Good Hope, at Sandton Sun, 4 November 2004, to celebrate forty years connection with South Africa

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