Hokitika Welcomes Flight

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31775, 4 September 1968, Page 1

Hokitika Welcomes Flight

Hokitika intends to take every advantage of the new Fokker Friendship service of the National Airways Corporation which will begin on December 20. When a promotion flight was made yesterday those on board were wooed with words, an airport welcome by the Kokatahi Band, schooners of beer, more whitebait than they could eat at lunch, and greenstone gifts as they departed.

Behind the hospitality were promises of co-operation from the whole of the West Coast to make all the coast air services succeed. There was only one reservation, expressed by Mr P. Blanchfield, M.P. for Westland, who said: “We hope

that N.A.C. extended services will bring people to Westland, not fly them over it” Mr Blanchfield also summed up the outing at the end of the flight by saying: “There were more people at Hokitika Airport than there are now at Christchurch International Airport.” Hundreds lined the tarmac behind the Kokatahi Band when the aircraft reached Hokitika about noon. Hundreds more went out during the afternoon to watch the Friendship make short scenic and courtesy flights. And there were several hundred to see it leave.

Daily Friendship flights will begin on December 20, leaving Christchurch at 1 p.m., reaching Hokitika at 1.50 p.m., leaving again at 2.10 p.m., to be back in Christchurch at 3 p.m. This will connect with inward and outward flights to all main centres.

From February 3 the flights will be made on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays but many present hope sustained business will justify continuation of the daily schedule. The one-way fare will be $6.50. The flight is being sold as a convenient and quick entry to central Westland. The bonus of trans-alpine scenery is not being pushed particularly. The corporation esti-

mates that It earned $lOO,OOO in domestic tourist traffic in the last year and that 600,000 passengers (or 42 per cent of its total load) are tourist travellers. The Hokitika service is aimed to boost this more.

Asked why the aircraft could not stay an hour or two in Hokitika for day return trippers, N.A.C. officials said the aircraft to be used would have a daily schedule of Auckland, Rotorua, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch, Hokitika, Christchurch, Nelson, Wellington, Hamilton, Auckland, so time could not be spared. Friendships "worked” 2800 hours a year whereas a 40-hour week amounted to about 2000 hours. The Friendships to be moved to some secondary routes when Boeings arrive will have seating reduced from 40 to 36 to make more room for freight. In Hokitika yesterday local body, tourist, travel, accommodation interests from all over the West Coast and Christchurch were assembled to plan co-operative exploitation of improved air services. “We get moving in Hokitika," said the Mayor (Mr W. J. Richards). “This lounge bar (where the welcome was given) was built in 10 working days.” “We will recreate history,”

said the Mayor of Greymouth (Dr B. M. Dallas). “We will reconstruct a former goldmining town if you wish. We will have a former coalmining town.” The Mayor of Christchurch (Sir George Manning) and Mr E. T. Beaven, vice-chairman of N.A.C. and a leader in the South Island Publicity Association, thanked the hosts. Probably • the most interested person on the flight was Mr T. E. Y. Seddon, son of Richard John Seddon and himself M.P. for Westland from 1906 to 1920 and again from 1925 to 1928. Now 84, he was thrilled with the trip; Mr Seddon recalled that he rode in a cattle truck on the first train from Greymouth to Hokitika in the early 1890 s and that a tram on wooden tracks used to take his family to the banks of the Taramakau River, where they were swung aerbss in an iron cage. Even before that, trains ran from Christchurch to Springfield where passengers transferred to horse coaches, drove to Bealey for the night, and then on to his family’s establishment at Kumara. “Two days then—4o minutes now by N.A.C.,” Mr Seddon said. The photograph shows the aircraft on its arrival at Hokitika Airport.