Mr Anthony J. Lucking (Physics 1943, Electrical Engineering 1949)

Originally published by the Times on February 4 2009

Tony Lucking: engineer and air transport expert

Tony Lucking was for half a century the voice of Britain's air transport consumers, not least those in business and industry. Known to all as Citizen Lucking, he campaigned for competitive and efficient air services.

His sobriquet Citizen Lucking was earned in the 1960s when scheduled air services were the monopoly of BOAC and BEA. Independents were allowed a look-in if they agreed to be "associates" of the state airlines. His independent voice of protest and reason began to be heard at licensing hearings. It is easy to forget that his progressive ideas became today's received wisdom. He lived to see independent competition, deregulated fares and routes, better accounting and financial transparency, and improved cost and traffic data.

He championed deregulated air travel for the masses and argued that cities without air transport are not on the map of global business. He asserted that a modern economy cannot prosper without airports and their connections with world markets.

Lucking was a numerate engineer who applied hard, verifiable data to his arguments. His air transport database, stored in his computer and on the windowsills of his Covent Garden flat, was probably the most comprehensive in private hands.

A keen spotter of dodgy statistics, Lucking enjoyed unearthing facts about competition, productivity, efficiency, fares, revenues, payloads and costs. He was never boring, never aggressive, and always helpful at simplifying complicated issues. His reports and letters engaged in reason rather than polemics, and were aimed primarily at public policymakers — ministers, civil servants, MPs, editors and professional bodies.

He did not crow about his victories or proselytise. Nor did he seek the limelight or fall out with people. He had many friends and even admirers among those who said "it can't be done". He would calm discord by quoting P. G. Wodehouse: "Let us discuss this matter over a moody forkful."

Lucking often enlivened his reports and letters with quotations. In the battles about where to locate a third London airport he costed the human time needed to get to and from Maplin Sands, a proposed remote Thames Estuary airport. Make better use of existing assets such as Stansted, he urged. He quoted Lord Hanson: "I want 15 per cent from every asset or you're fired!"

In the debate about the Channel Tunnel he showed that air and sea transport would always be cheaper, especially for cargo. In the current debate about a third runway for Heathrow he advocated better use of the two existing runways, operating them in mixed mode (sequenced take-offs and landings) as is safely done at Chicago and other US cities. Yes, a third Heathrow runway would be needed, but it should be short and reserved for small, quiet regional airliners.

The logistics and efficiency of air power had fascinated him as a young British Army officer in India. Later he admired the Berlin airlift and the can-do attitude which drove it. From his army experience he believed that objectives are won by good transport.

Anthony James Lucking was born in Birmingham in 1925, the son of an optician, Reginald Lucking, and his wife, Ella Mary. He was educated at King's Norton and Sebright schools in the Midlands, winning a scholarship to Imperial College at 16. He qualified as an electrical engineer after war service. Before joining The Wiltshire Regiment in 1944, he served in the Home Guard, manning an anti- aircraft rocket battery in Hyde Park. He believed that there was much to learn from military history. In battlefield visits and record-office researches he uncovered new information about the Crimean and Boer wars — the Light Brigade's miscommunication, Mary Seacole's hospital work, Emily Hobhouse's campaign against the captivity of Boer women and children, and the missing Jamieson Raid guns.

He recounted little of his own military history except for his time in India after Partition, trying to keep the peace in Calcutta. As a 21-year-old lieutenant he found himself "unnerved" by a murderous crowd bearing down on his platoon. He said that when he ordered "F-f-f-f-fix bayonets" the mob ran away.

Retiring as a major in 1947 he worked for Standard Telephones and Cable before joining the management consultants Urwick Orr. His assignments included the new steelworks at Port Talbot, aircrew rostering at Hunting-Clan Airways, and reorganising the plastic components manufacturer Waddington & Duval. Lucking usually began his assessments just sitting in a corner observing and listening. "You can learn a lot about an organisation doing that," he would say.

In 1961 he was appointed managing director of Waddington & Duval where he invented a plastic press-tap for wine boxes. The big technical challenge was precision moulding to ensure that the tap was absolutely leak-proof. Lucking the engineer, with his scientific approach to problems, succeeded. He then led extensive sales campaigns, notably in Australia and South Africa. The wine-box press-tap is today commonplace, with much profit to his company.

In 1990 he retired from Waddington & Duval, where he had found time for his air transport campaigns and had gained much first-hand experience as an airline customer. He now stepped up his air transport researches, extending them to rail, sea and road transport. He was concerned about the amount of hidden public money being poured into railways, and the opacity of the accounting. He studied motorway construction and found that British surfaces are much thinner than those on the Continent, resulting in roadworks and traffic jams which waste resources.

Citizen Lucking was independent, unpaid, unstaffed and remained a bachelor. He was a member of the Airline Users Committee and its honorary consultant for many years, a Freeman of the City of London, an adviser to the House of Commons Transport Select Committee chairman Gwyneth Dunwoody, a member of the Worshipful Company of Carmen, a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, a member of the RAeS Air Transport Group, and a glider pilot.

He leaves a sister and many friends who will miss his "Ah, what-ho?"

Tony Lucking, engineer and air transport expert, was born on May 14, 1925. He died on December 22, 2008, aged 83.