AIR SERVICE TO MELBOURNE

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27097, 21 July 1953, Page 8

AIR SERVICE TO MELBOURNE

CHANGES ADVOCATED IN TIMETABLE

MANUFACTURERS’ VIEWS

The operation of the MelbourneHare wood air service at a more convenient time of the week, and the running df a service between Harer wood and Sydney in the summer, were advocated at a meeting of the council of the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association last evening. The present Harewood-Melboume service on Fridays was said tp be of no use to the businessman, as he arrived, in Australia in the evening when businesses were closing for the week-end.

The Otago-Southland Manufacturers’ Association forwarded the minutes of an executive meeting of the association at which a letter was received from Mr F. M. Halstead, in which he advocated increasing the frequency of the Melbourne-Harewood service. Mr Halstead said it was not generally known that passengers from Caristchurch.to Melbourne could continue in the same aircraft to Sydney after a short stop at Essendon. Members of the Otago association agreed that at certain • times of the year there was congestion of bookings on the service, and that some passengers had difficulty in obtaining reservations. Alleged Diversion of Traffic The letter said a member oi the executive had claimed that passengers had been deliberately diverted from Harewood to Wellington * and Auckland to make use of the flyingboat services. The Otago association agreed that, although Dunedin booking agents reported that they were endeavouring to sell seats on the Christ-church-Melbourne service each week until the end of September, this was no indication that the service was exploiting to capacity the passengers who would use it if a more convenient timetable was arranged. The Otago executive decided to request the Canterbury association to “maintain a watchful eye”, on the service and periodically to supply a report to the Otago association.

The president of the Canterbury association (Mr H. C. Urlwin) said that at present a British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines aircraft arriving at Auckland from North America could not carry passengers if it flew to Sydney on its return flight, because of Tasman Airways’ monopoly on the transTasman crossing, but if the suggested amalgamation of Tasman Airways and B.C.P.A. took place, he believed a good number of passengers would be diverted to fill up these aircraft.

Harewood a “Cinderella” “I fear, if that happens, Harewood would be in greater danger of being by-passed than ever,” Mr Urlwin said. “As you know, it is the biggest Cinderella of them all.”

Mr Urlwin said that only when he was last in Australia had he learned that the aircraft which flew from Melbourne to Harewood started out from Sydney. “I don’t think that fact has been advertised,” he said. “I don’t think Tasman Airways does anything to popularise the service,” Mr Urlwin said. “I don’t know what the nigger in the woodpile is—whether it is planes or what it is. From a business point of view, the Friday plane, landing' in Melbourne in the evening, is a nuisance.

“I feel we should give Otago all the backing we can.” he said. “We should ask Tasman Airways whether we are getting another service to Sydney, or experience what happened last summer when . you could not get on a plane for a couple of months. Mr L. Govan said that the company would tell the council that its existing flights were not fllled.Mr W. G. Quirk said the council had to put something concrete before Tasman Airways. It had been reported that fewer passengers had used the Melbourne service in the second year of its operation than in the first. “We have to say we want the aircraft, say on a Tuesday, and in the summer two aircraft,” he said. The point was not how many travelled by the Melbourne service, but how many would travel by it if there was a better service, said Mr Urlwin. The council decided to write •to Tasman Airways and express its views.