Minister Replies To League On Air Services To City

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28979, 21 August 1959, Page 9

Minister Replies To League On Air Services To City

(From Our Own Reporter)

WELLINGTON, August 20. "In my 20 months as Minister no Government has shown any desire to vary its bilateral agreement with New Zealand so as to provide for services into Christchurch by its designated airline,” said the Minister of Civil Aviation (Mr Mathison) today. He was commenting on statements made in Christchurch by the chairman of the Canterbury Progress League’s public relations committee (Mr H. E. Radley) and the Canterbury public relations officer (Mr E. G. Beckett*. “If Mr Radley and Mr Beckett can persuade any trans-Pacific operator to make an application for Christchurch as a New Zealand terminal, the position will be considered thoroughly,” said Mr Mathison. “On the other hand, rights across the Tasman are not only a national asset but, as I have emphasised before, are also subject to special inter-govern-mental agreement. “Doing a Disservice” “Christchurch has a very fine airport, but those who rightly press its interests must stay in touch with realities,” said the Minister. “In advocating the scrapping of T.E.A.L., which would happen if we gave away transTasman rights to all comers, they are doing Christchurch a disservice. With T.E.A.L. out of the way, other operators would provide the services they thought fit —not what Christchurch wanted.” Mr Beckett’s comments on tourist promotion had been effectively answed by T.E.A.L.’s Christchurch manager (Mr F. G. Hill), said Mr Mathison, but other assertions he had made needed correction. “Canadian Pacific Airlines said in a report published in a Wellington newspaper in April last that its application to use Britannia aircraft into New Zealand was a “routine and automatic” lic-ence-renewal formality, which received “a routine reply,” said Mr Mathison. “Had permission been given, C.P.A. had no early intention of using Britannias, and had none available to fly this route anyway. “The reduction in Pan American Airways flights into New Zealand has nothing to do with Government civil aviation or tourist policy. P.A.A. has decided to fly only one service a week between the United States and Australia, and it has reduced its Fiji-Auckland feeder service accordingly. “Mr Beckett has some of his facts right, but has put the wrong interpretation on them, no doubt unknowingly, to suit his argument The Government is as eager as anyone to generate more tourist traffic, but an ‘open slather’ on foreign airline services into New Zealand would not in itself make the slightest difference. Giant jets would come to New Zealand on regular service only if a company saw prospects of making a profit, and, as I have said before, we already have enough seats available to handle twice the present traffic. Electra Services “When TE.A.L. begins its Electra services to Fiji and across the Tasman, these will provide facilities, regularity, and fre-

quencies superior to any that a foreign operator would find financially worth while. “Moreover, T.E.A.L. time-tables will be co-ordinated with National Airways Corporation Viscount services and facilities, to give speed and convenience of connexions impossible in the past. “It is sad but true that when charter arrangements were being worked out between T.E.A.L. and Qantas, efforts to link Christchurch into a Melbourne-Fiji service through New Zealand revealed that, next to Auckland, traffic considerations made even Ohakea preferable to Christchurch as the New Zealand staging point. “For any airline, which in today’s fierce competition certainly cannot afford to be philanthropic, it is the available traffic that determines air routes, frequencies of service, and class of aircraft,” said Mr Mathison. “The reported willingness of overseas airlines to operate into Christchurch airport would be more to the poinl if these airlines were sufficiently interested to make official applications.”