Tasman Air Service

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25629, 19 October 1948, Page 4

Tasman Air Service

In a statement this morning the assistant general manager of Tasman Empire Airways Ltd. (Mr J. W. Veale) explains why his company is buying Solent flying-boats in preference to landplanes. Much of his argument is devoted to the exceptionally economical operation of the Solent and to the exceptional suitability of flying-boats for the Tasman service. He confirms what has been suggested many times in these columns—that the Tasman service is one of the easiest in the world to operate cheaply. Although he claims that no landplane can be operated more economically than the Solent, there is not a word in his statement to suggest that his company intends to reduce the fares or even hopes to reduce the fares, whieh, Government assertions notwithstanding, are far from being “ the lowest in the world ”. They are much higher, for instance, than those ruling on the Australian internal air services; and ’it is significant that the Australian private airline which wishes to operate a service between Melbourne and Christchurch with American landplanes has promised a very much lower fare than that of T.E.A.

Mr Veale has repeated, by implication, the claim of Government spokesmen that there is no alternative to British flying-boats except American aircraft and virtuously asserted his company’s interest in dollar-saving. The claim will not stand examination, because a British landplane which seems ideally suited to the Tasman service will be in full production early next year. This is the Hermes IV, a fourengined aircraft with pressurised cabins, carrying 63 passengers and a payload of seven tons, which has a cruising speed of 300 miles an hour and a range of 3600 miles. An aircraft of this type would do a return trip between Australia and New Zealand in a day with ease; and it is probable that three such aircraft would do -much more than the work of four flying-boats, and do it at lower cost. The three Governments which own Tasman Empire Airways must

have known that this aircraft, and possibly others equally suitable, would be available, little later than the Solents. Why, then, were flyingboats preferred? A clue to the answer may fee found in Mr Veale’s reference to aerodromes. New Zealand has not a single aerodrome of international standard. The only aerodrome that could quickly and cheaply be developed to this standard is Harewood. A change from flying-boats to landplanes would therefore mean a change frorti Auckland to Christchurch of the New Zealand trans-Tasman terminal. And for a variety of reasons the Government would be reluctant to subject North Island air travellers to the inconvenience which South Islanders have had to put up with for many years.