DOMINION AIR SERVICES

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21907, 7 October 1936, Page 10

DOMINION AIR SERVICES

BRITISH OFFICIAL TO RETURN NEXT WEEK

POSSIBLE ESTABLISHMENT OF NEW MINISTRY

fFrom Our Parliamentary Reporter!

WELLINGTON, October 6. Having completed his mission to New Zealand, Mr F. G. L. Bertram, Deputy-Director of Civil Aviation in the British Air Ministry, will leave Auckland by the Aorangi next Tuesday on his return to England. Mr Bertram is at present visiting relatives in the Bay of Islands, but his plans provide for his return to Auckland on Monday, and his departure by the Aorangi the next day. In discussing the results of Mr Bertram’s visit in an interview this evening, the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage) said that Mr Bertram had taken part in the discussions on the future of commercial air services

over the Tasman and Pacific, but the recommendations which developed from those discussions , were still confidential. .In addition. Mr Bertram had conferred with the Dominion authorities on all points raised by the expansion of internal air services in New Zealand, and his report on that point would doubtless be made available to the Government soon. Although the Prime Minister himself did not say so, it is believed that an application by Union Airways for

1 an extension of its trunk route license from Palmerston North is being held up, pending the receipt of Mr Ber* tram’s report and the settlement by ; the Government of a detailed policy i for civil aviation in the Dominion. | It is also believed that one of the major points which Mr Bertram was

asked to investigate was a proposal that New Zealand should have a separate air ministry to control all civil aviation in the Dominion, and that the i Government’s decision on this proi bosal will follow the consideration of I Mr Bertram’s recommendations.