CHRISTMAS IN AUSTRALIA

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25995, 24 December 1949, Page 7

CHRISTMAS IN AUSTRALIA

RECORD AIR TRAFFIC EXPECTED 120 FLIGHTS ADDED TO SCHEDULES SYDNEY, December 23. Air passenger traffic to-day is expected to be the heaviest in Australian aviation history. More than 6000 travellers will pass in and out of Mascot Aerodrome alone. Australian National Airways will carry 2800 passengers, and the Gov-ernment-owned Trans-Australian Airlines 3000. Between them, these two have added 120 special flights to their normal schedules. Shopping, travel, and postal records are toppling daily, as for the first time since the war Australia faces a Christmas holiday period without the prospect of transport and. power rationing. w The northern New South Wales miners are already on holiday, and the men of the southern fields will leave to-morrow for Christmas resorts, but before going they have ensured ample supplies of coal until their return on January 16. Yesterday the exodus of holidaymakers from the cities began, more than 200,000 people leaving Sydney alone by train, aeroplane, and bus. Four hundred thousand people are expected to leave Sydney within the next three days, and all the holiday resorts within 200 miles of Sydney have been booked out for months. Tourist bureaux have been forced to turn hundreds away with the doleful news that inland resorts will be fully booked until at least the middle of January and beach resorts until the end of February. Most people are prepared to go wherever they can be guaranteed a bed. Accommodation in Sydney itself is so hard to get that many travellers are boarding ships a few days early and spending Christmas in port. The only serious shortage this Christmas is bottled beer, which is scarcer than ever. Brewers say that the shortage is caused by lack of bottles, but glass blowers say that the breweries did not take bottles for three months this year when thdy were available. Those who are not favoured customers will have to rely on a wide variety of Australian wines and spirits and expensive Continental imports.