WHENUAPAI AIR TERMINAL

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27896, 18 February 1956, Page 5

WHENUAPAI AIR TERMINAL

NEW BUILDING COMPLETED "The Press” Special Service Auckland, February 17. The new passenger terminal at Whenuapai stands completed except that there is scarcely a thing inside it. The public address system, telephones, furniture and kitchen equipment are among the items that still have to be installed in the building. When it will open no one is prepared to say. Some money is still to be voted by the Government toward the installation of this equipment. The building, which has been roundly criticised on the grounds of austerity, space and the materials that have gone into it, is a great improvement on present conditions at Whenuapai and, both externally and internally, is by no means unattractive.

Pastel colours, polished knotted pine and timber left rough but painted are quite attractive features. Each airline has its own small office, the windows of which give a view of the tarmac and part of the main runway. Another building is rising between the present terminal and the administrative building of Pan American Airways. It will be used by the National Airways Corporation for freight, and mail will be handled there. The civil aviation area is to be a jumble of building of all shapes and sizes. But all are temporary and. except for Tasman Airways’ new hangar, their useful life is expected to end before the new Mangere airport is built—some say, pessimistically, probably before it is even started.