Cut-Rate Tasman Flights Seen As Tourist Threat

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30390, 14 March 1964, Page 14

Cut-Rate Tasman Flights Seen As Tourist Threat

Starlight Flights operated by Tasman Empire Air Lines and providing reduced charges across the Tasman during the peak tourist period from December to March are expected to affect the pattern of Australian tourist flow to New Zealand.

The district manager of the Government Tourist Bureau in Christchurch (Mr W. A. Pickford) said yesterday that between December and March there were only three Starlight Flights to Christchurch, compared with 55 to Wellington and 89 to Auckland. Mr Pickford said the bulk of these cut-rate flights originated from Sydney, five would come from Melbourne and one from Brisbane. The normal economy fare across the Tasman by T.E.A.L. was £65 6s. This was reduced to £5l provided a passenger travelled one way on a night flight—-between 11.30 p.m. and 6 a.m. The Starlight flight fare is available only where travel is between two points— Sydney, Wellington and return, for example, not Sydney to Wellington and then Christchurch to Sydney, he said. Deviation Mr Pickford said the difference in fares available to Australian passengers using the Starlight flight excursion rates must mean a deviation of the flow from normal flights into Christchurch to excursion flight based fares into Wellington and Auckland.

He said that in his opinion the greater difference on Starlight Flights and group tours on night flights would make a marked change in the tourist flow pattern. He

said a disparity in the provision of so many flights to the North Island—l44—as against three to Christchurch in the peak period was self evident. The district manager of T.E.A.L. (Mr A. T. Gillmore) said the reduced fare Starlight Flights were introduced last January when the large number of movements across the Tasman made it necessary to position aircraft through the night to pick up normal schedules the following day. They were not scheduled

so that reduced fares could be offered. It was because night flights were necessary that cut fares were offered as an inducement to travel at times which were unpopular and inconvenient, he said. As it was the Starlight Flights were the poorest patronised of any T.E.A.L. operated, said Mr Gillmore. Next summer, at regular convenient times, Christchurch will receive seven flights a week from Sydney and four from Melbourne, said Mr Gillmore. “A Lot of Explaining" Mr H. P. Smith, president of the South Island Publicity Association, commenting on the large number of Starlight Flights to the North Island, compared with only three to Christchurch, said this situation would take a lot of explaining. Mr Smith said that with the excellent facilities at Christchurch airport and the admitted tourist attractions of the South Island he found it difficult to understand a schedule of flights at concession rates having such a strong bias to the north. He said the matter would certainly be put before the association’s executive so that it could inquire from the airline the reason for the high North Island preference.