CRITICISM OF N.Z AIRWAYS

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25936, 17 October 1949, Page 6

CRITICISM OF N.Z AIRWAYS

“POOREST IN THE WORLD ” VIEWS OF SOUTH AFRICAN TOURIST t “The Press” Special Service DUNEDIN. October 16. The New Zealand air service was the poorest he had seen in the world, said Mr R. Wilson, a South African publisher, in an interview ir Dunedin. The pilots were doing e magnificent job in most difficult conditions and without the best of modern aircraft, he added. There was no excuse for this lack of the latest planes, he said, as types specially designed I for conditions similar to these in New j Zealand had been available for some lime, and the service was a national organisation. I On a recent flight in New Zealand | his plane had encountered b?Ri weather and had been forced to rise to ; 12.000 feet above sea level. The type of [plane he was travelling in did not have a pressurised cabin, and had not I been designed to carry passengers ! above 10.060 feet. He had “passed out’ 1 —a thing he had never done on transAtlantic flights at greater heights, said Mr Wilson. Since February he had travelled some* 65.000 miles around the I world, most of it by air. and had done much flying before that. I In general, however. New Zealand was one of the most fortunate countries in the world, he said. It was not I torn by warring sections of the community. Admittedly there were twe political parties, but they were both ■ democratic. It was not. as in South Africa, a case of white against black and black against Indian.