The Press MONDAY, MAY 18, 1959. Air Services

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28897, 18 May 1959, Page 10

The Press MONDAY, MAY 18, 1959. Air Services

It was an unhappy coincidence for the Minister in charge of

Civil Aviation (Mr Mathison) that, while he was busy ex- - plaining the Government’s restrictions on overseas aviation, a disinterested observer (with rather wider experience in the business) was expressing an almost opposite view. Mr Mathison may not want to see jet air services to New Zealand; but Mr Leigh Fisher, the American consultant on the Mangere airport, believes they are essential to develop New Zealand’s “ tremendous tourist “ potential ”. No-one can gainsay Mr Fisher’s argument that the Pacific should be “ sold as “ a package ”, which is not easy When New Zealand, well off the jet routes, is served by a branch line. Mr Mathison’s arguments are not so easy to follow. They seem to amount to these—that New Zealand must have control of a payable airline even if it has to let Australia exercise that control; it is in order for Tasman Empire Airways to charter aircraft from Qantas, but to charter them from anyone else would destroy the Tasman monopoly. Mr Mathison says Australia has no real need for T.E.A.L. (in which it has a half-interest). In the long run that may be (rue. It is equally true that Mr Mathison can have no assurance that Australia will take any further interest in T.E.A.L. after , its short-term purpose has been served. That purpose is apparently to keep the Tasman monopoly while permitting Qantas to make a back-door entry through the * charter ” arrangement. When Qantas is ready to provide jets for the charter (having blocked T.E.A.L. from buying the jets wanted by the New Zealand management), it will have an even stronger competitive advantage over its Pacific competitors and may no longer need T.E.A.L. New Zealanders will then see the kind of modern service they were not gllowed to give in spite of Mr Mathison’s assurance that they control the airline. Whether

the Australian Government will continue to bother with T.E.A.L. will then depend on what other way it can make use of the line. In the meantime New Zealand remains in an aviation backwater. If Qantas really wanted to be helpful it would be investigating the possibility of giving New Zealand a jet service through Christchurch, under charter, naturally, to T.E.A.L. Incidentally, Mr Mathison’s statement that if Pan American aircraft were chartered for Tasman crossings through Christchurch the American company might want to transfer its rights to Auckland is naive. Surely there are two sides to a charter, and T.E.A.L. could not be forced to alter or extend whatever arrangement was made. Curiously enough, Mr Fisher was able to throw light on the “ T.E.A.L. deal ”, which resulted in New Zealand having to forgo Comets for the Electras wanted by Qantas. It was suspected at the time that the New Zealand Government, with its old hankering for a direct Australian service to Wellington, had taken the bait that Electras would be more suitable for that purpose.

If Mr Fisher is right in saying that T.E.A.L. “intends” to start a Wellington service, the New Zealand Government must be determined not to learn from experience. T.E.A.L. has only just recovered from the disastrous losses caused by an earlier Wellington service; and if it has to go through the same thing again, that may be a greater danger to its success than any liberalising of policy towards overseas airlines. The danger to life through using Rongotai or Paraparaumu for Tasman crossings may be more important than the direct cost to the Government of wasteful expenditure at Paraparaumu and to the airline of having to operate unsuitable aircraft into unsuitable airfields. Even the most stubborn Minister should be daunted by the expert advice against these airports on file.