MOUNT COOK MAY GO JET

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33650, 27 September 1974, Page 3

MOUNT COOK MAY GO JET

■ The Hawker-Siddeley j 146 four-engine jet, capable of carrying between 90 and 100 passengers and of working from existing airfields, is the aircraft which Mount Cook Airlines sees as .the likely; successor in the 1980’s; to the Hawker-Siddeley 748’s it now uses.

The chairman (Mr H. R. Wigley), who has just returned from a trip evaluating replacements for the present fleet, said that the HSI46 was ideal, but the production of the aircraft was still doubtful. Hawker-Siddeley was seeking a grant from the British Government to assist development.

Even if the new HawkerSiddeley jet were available tomorrow, Mr Wigley said Mount Cook could not introduce pure jets until navigational aids permitting allweather and night flying were installed at all the landing fields it used. In the meantime, the company has to obtain another aircraft to cope with the rapid growth in tourist traffic.

Mr Wigley said that his company had to decide

whether it would lease or; buy an extra 748 (or peaktraffic. Two of the problems of trying to get a new 748 were! a production time lag of two! years and a price increase of!

;80 per cent since the company bought its second 748; I two years, ago for £615,000. I The increase was due to ■inflation in Britain. To be! ! added on to this cost would be the 9 per cent increase!

resulting from New Zea--11 land’s devaluation of the I dollar. >; Mr Wigley said that, as a i past resort, the company I;could continue to use 748 s ;!for the next 15 years.