AIR SERVICE TO HAREWOOD

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25713, 27 January 1949, Page 4

AIR SERVICE TO HAREWOOD

EXPERIENCE OF TWO, PASSENGERS THROUGH BOOKINGS FROM AUSTRALIA “Humiliating” and “upsetting” were two adjectives used to describe alleged shortcomings in air travel arrangements to Christchurch in a discussion on the Harewood airport by the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association Council last night. Mr C. S. PeaVe said that two Christchurch residents who recently went to Australia bv air were put to considerable embarrassment on the return trip. Their passages had been booked both ways before they left New Zealand. said Mr Peate. Arriving at Auckland on the return trip, however, they were told that ho reservations were made for them on the internal service down to Harewood. They finally were given seats to Paraparaumu, but were told that once there they might have to stay the night in Wellington and come the of the way by the steamer express. They finally arrived home by air, however.

After being some months outside the country, it was both humiliating and upsetting for returning travellers to run into this sort of thing on their way to their home town, Mr Peate said. The trouble was apparently caused by lack of co-operation between the office staffs in Sydney and Auckland. Such an occurrence was an. excellent example of the need for making Harewood an overseas airport. Had those travellers been able to come direct from Melbourne to Harewood they would certainly have come home by that route. Mr Peate’s comments were prompted by the reading of a letter from the Otago-Southland Manufacturers’ Association promising the fullest support for the campaign to have Harewood made an overseas airport. It was planned, said the letter, to convene a public meeting in the south to advance the South Island’s claims for a better air service to Australia. Other members said it was necessary to keep up the pressure to have Harewood made an international airport. “Public opinion from North Auckland to Bluff is behind it,** said Mr A. M. Hollander. The only blind spot appeared to be in the office of the Minister in charge of Air Department F. Jones).