REPLACEMENT ON CHARTER

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28742, 13 November 1958, Page 18

REPLACEMENT ON CHARTER

N.A.C. Inquiries In Australia

Within four hours of the N.A.C. Viscount being disabled at Auckland yesterday corporation officials were seeking to charter a replacement plane from Australia. The replacement might be required for a number of weeks, especially over the Christmas and New Year period, when nearly 2000 persons have already reserved scats for flights from Christchurch to Auckland. In the meantime Douglas DC-3 airliners will be used on the route. This morning two planes, leaving Christchurch at 10 a.m. and 10.10 a.m., will carry passengers on the normal single flight service of the Viscount to Auckland.

Three senior engineers went to Auckland yesterday afternoon from the corporation’s overhaul and maintenance base in Christchurch. They were Messrs J. H. Green (technical officer), W. Johnson (maintenance superintendent), and C. H. Jones (assistant chief inspector). They were to have inspected the Viscount and reported back to the base, which is sending a crash repair crew and spare parts north today aboard a freighter plane. The Christchurch branch manager (Mr J. E. Davies) said yesterday afternoon that suitable arrangements will be made to accommodate all passengers who are booked for Viscount flights. Schedules would be announced for temporary replacement by DC-3 flights in the next few days. The management was exploring the possibility of obtaining on charter a Viscount replacement aircraft from overseas, he said. Although it is understood that preliminary exploration is being made for a charter aircraft from Australia, the corporation may have to look further afield, possibly to the northern hemisphere, because of the coincidence of the Australian and New Zealand peak travel seasons in the summer. In the northern hemisphere, travel is approaching the off-season, and a replacement, until the N.A.C. Viscount is repaired, may be more readily obtainable from there.