Loss Of Tourist Revenue In Waiting For Mangere

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30144, 30 May 1963, Page 15

Loss Of Tourist Revenue In Waiting For Mangere

New Zealand was forgoing huge financial gains in not using Christchurch airport for pure jet services, said Mr W. J. Mullahey, the director of Pan American World Airways for the central and south Pacific, in Christchurch yesterday. , Mr Mullahey estimated the Dominion could lose in excess of £l2m in North American revenue alone if the Government persisted in waiting for Mangere to open instead of using Christchurch airport now.

He said the Government was hanging delays on the so-called lack of navigational aids at Harewood. Yet military Boeings had operated through Harewood, as had the Qantas commercial Boeing which carried the Queen. “If these planes can come through here safely with the airport still being considered lacking in navigational aids, then it is just a matter of pure politics,” he said. Mf Mullahey said the introduction of pure jets—and this was the last country he knew of without them—could

bring about a passenger increase of 100 per cent, on the normal rate of growth during the thtree-year period of waiting for Mangere to open. He further estimated the Dominion would have a gain of 63,000 North American tourists in that three year period. On the assumption that the average expenditure of each was £lO daily and the average stay was 20 days, this

would give a total spending of £2OO or a grand total of £l2m over the three year period, said Mr Mullahey. If permitted by the Government, his company could operate through Christchurch, he said, as there was really little to choose between Christchurch and Auckland as entry points for tourists.

Mr Mullaihey said that in the United States the government did not run airlines whereas most other countries did. That was why permission to operate through other countries nearly always meant government - togovemmeht negotiations. Mr Mullahey, whose office is in Honolulu, is here on a quick inspection tour of his company’s facilities. He is accompanied by his public relations officer in Honolulu (Mr P. Kendall) and the Pan" American director for New Zealand (Mr W. L. Rolph).