Air Fare Cuts Urged

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31341, 11 April 1967, Page 13

Air Fare Cuts Urged

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, April 9.

New Zealand was missing the boat in the tourist trade by not attracting more tourists to fly here with reduced fares, the president of Canadian Pacific Airlines, Mr J. C. Gilmer, said in Auckland on Saturday.

Mr Gilmer is on his way to a conference in Australia. For more than a year C.P.A. had advocated substantial cuts in basic air fares across the Pacific to stimulate tourism, he said.

Other airlines which operated in the area opposed the cuts, although some reductions in certain classes for limited periods had been agreed to. Mr Gilmer said he was sure that substantial fare reductions would generate increased services. C.P.A. had been harshly restricted in its service to one flight a fortnight by the New Zealand Government, he said. “We will let time take care of things. The difficulties of this route are not going to make us or break us,” he said.

Mr Gilmer said the fare structure between Honolulu and New Zealand and Australia was the world’s highest cost per mile to air passengers.

“We would like to see anything from 25 per cent to 30 per cent cut in the basic air fare,” he said. “I am sure you could operate quite economically after such a drop. You have to stimulate traffic somehow.” No other country could touch New Zealand as a scenic tourist attraction.

“It is a microcosm of beauty,” he said. But it was not known widely enough overseas. Other famous areas had been spending money on publicity for generations, and New Zealand had a long way to go to catch up.