T.E.A.L‘s NEW AIRCRAFT

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28983, 26 August 1959, Page 12

T.E.A.L‘s NEW AIRCRAFT

Value In Tourist Trade

“I do not think T.E.A.L. should be scrapped; when they get their new planes they will have machines that will be able to meet competition,” the Mayor of Dunedin (Sir Leonard Wright) sc id in Christchurch yesterday on return from a four months’ private tour overseas. He had been asked to comment on a “Scrap T.E.A.L.” statement from a spokesman of the Canterbury Progress League and Public Relations Office which followed a cabled message from Tokyo reporting him as saying that overseas airlines would not use New Zealand as a terminus unless they had trans-Tasman passenger traffic rights. “We travelled from Hong Kong to Sydney in an Electra aircraft of the type T.E.A.L. will have, and we were as comfortable as if not more comfortable than in any other aircraft we flew in—and that includes the Comets, Britannias and other major planes,” Sir Leonard Wright said. Sir Leonard Wright said hat one thing that impressed him on his tour was “the tremendous upsurge of travel in the United States. “There is no question about it: many people who have previously looked to Europe are turning their eyes this way. “If we are geared to handle an increasing number of tourists it is certain we will get them,” he said.

Sir Leonard Wright said that he felt now that he had “done the circle” through the United States to Britain, Ireland, Rome, India, Hong Kong, Japan and Sydney, that New Zealanders had to realise their tourist potential. “We saw nothing better than the beauty of the South Island. We have to get together in the South Island and plug the assets Nature has given us and capitalise on them.” he said.