SOUTH PACIFIC AIR SERVICE

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26559, 23 October 1951, Page 8

SOUTH PACIFIC AIR SERVICE

TRANSFER TO TASMAN AIRWAYS

NEW ROUTE TO EXCLUDE RAROTONGA (New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, October 22. Tasman Empire Airways will take over in mid-November the South Pacific regional air servici that the National Airways Corporaiton has operated for four years. The route will be revised to extend to Tahiti, but to exclude Rarotonga. The corporation will continue the Auckland-Norfolk Island service. This decision has been made after discussion by the New Zealand, Australian. and United Kingdom Governments and thorough investigation by Tasman Empire Airways ana the corporation. The Australian Government is understood not to have agreed entirely that Pacific operation with fly-ing-boats was preferable to using land aeroplanes. The principal factors leading to-the decision are:—(l) that the new Tasman Airways service has prospects of paying its way, and the New Zealand Government should therefore be relieved of subsidising the route; (2) the use' of flying-boats on the Pacific service better fits in to the Commonwealth defence scheme. The New Zealand Government paid a subsidy of £109,000 for the corporation’s Pacific service in the year ended March, 1951. This year the estimated subsidy has been reduced to £82,000, apparently in the expectation -that after the transfer to Tasman Airways the service will pay. The exclusion from the new route of Rarotonga—the lagoon there is unsuitable for flying-boats—has led to local protests to the New Zealand Government. This problem will probably be met by a Dakota feeder service to, link with the flying-boats at Aitutaki, but no decision has yet been made. Tahiti has no airfield suitable for the type of land aeroplane that would be necessary to operate there, and to reconstruct the airfield to required standards would cost about £1,500.000. To equip Samoa with flying-boat facilities, on the other hand, would cost only about- £30.000. .No National Air Ways Corporation pilots will lose employment when the corporation abandons the Pacific service and none will lose seniority. They will lose £l5O a year overseas allowance. paid to compensate for extra expenses and time away from home.