University to Study HSA Flights; Agency May Have Violated Rules

"Very much disturbed" by charges of illegality and excessive profits, Dean Watson has asked the Harvard Student Agencies, Inc., to prepare "a complete report" on its charter-flight operations last summer.

Dustin M. Burke '52, general manager of the HSA, said yesterday that the report would probably be ready this week. It will be submitted to a number of Administration officials, including Deans Watson and Monro and L. Gard Wiggins, Administrative Vice-President.

Wiggins ultimately will decide whether Harvard should allow the HSA to keep its monopoly on charter flights or whether it should re-establish its competitive system.

One result of the investigation, according to Monro, may be a requirement that the HSA publish its charter-flight accounts or at least allow the University to audit its books.

"My general impression is that an operation of this size ought to be looked at each year by the University," Monro said. "We hadn't thought of that before all this criticism."

"I'm satisfied in my own mind that the charter flights are a good operation, that they're not an illegal operation, and that their charges are not way out of line," he said.

Watson ordered the HSA report after receiving a letter from a group of undergraduates who charged that the charter-flights agency had violated regulations of the Civil Aeronautics Board and the International Air Transport Association.

The Students--who offered in a second letter to provide a non profit charter service-cited CAB rules requiring charter operators to itemize their anticipated expenses for prospective passengers and to issue a detailed financial report after each flight.

They also found two paragraphs which they interpreted to mean that an operator may not use money earned on charter flights to finance any other enterprises.

Harold Rosenwald '27, general counsel for the HSA, conceded last night that some of the students' points were "reasonably legitimate." He said however, that the HSA had always "assumed" that the CAB had no jurisdiction over foreign airlines, which provide all the HSA's planes for transatlantic flights.

These lines are regulated, he said, by LATA, an organization composed of the major U.S. and foreign carriers. He said the HSA was complying with an LATA rule that forbids anyone connected with a charter to make a profit.