First Air New Zealand Flight To Singapore

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31028, 6 April 1966, Page 8

First Air New Zealand Flight To Singapore

Air New Zealand will complete its current jet expansion programme today with the first DCS jet service from Auckland to Singapore by way of Sydney. The service will operate weekly and the 3915-mile sector from Sydney to Singapore will be the longest on the airline’s new routes.

Twenty-two members of a New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation trade mission to South-east Asia will fly to Singapore on the first flight, as will Air New Zealand’s chairman, Mr G. N. Roberts.

At Sydney, the inaugural flight will be joined by the veteran aviation journalist, Mr Jack Percival, of the “Sydney Morning Herald,” who flew the Tasman in the Southern Cross with Sir Charles Kingsford Smith in January, 1934, and was a passenger on Air New Zealand’s (then T.E.A.L.) inaugural Syd-ney-Auckland S3O Empire class flying-boat service on May 2, 1940.

Among the airline’s guests from New Zealand will be Mr M. F. Foate (of Christchurch), secretary of the South Island Publicity Association; Mr J. M. Geddis, representing the honorary consul for the Philippines; Mr G. H. Lusk, chairman of the Air Services Licensing Authority; Mr T. E. Skinner, president Of the Federation of Labour; Mr R. Wilson, director-gen-eral of the New Zealand National Party; Mr R. P. Thompson, of Christchurch, a director of New Zealand Breweries Ltd., and Mr M. L. Tronson, Auckland Provincial public relations officer. Other guests will include commercial and industrial re-

presentatives, travel agents and journalists. The Singapore service will complete a DCS introduction and route expansion programme which began when the DCB jet airliners started Christchurch-Sydney services on October 3 last year. It will be the airline’s third Ipng-haul service. The first was established on December 14—from Auckland to Los Angeles—and the second on March 3, from Auckland to Hong Kong. With the Singapore service, Air New Zealand’s route mileage will have more than doubled in four months to 34,613 miles.