Dutch want share of Air N.Z. monopoly

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34105, 18 March 1976, Page 3

Dutch want share of Air N.Z. monopoly

CN Z.P.A. Staff Cr spilt)

SYDNEY, March 17. A formal diplomatic protest has been made by the Netherlands to New Zealand over the air rights of Dutch people flying to New Zealand.

A note handed to New Zealand officials in The Hague alleges that Dutch citizens are being forced by airline practices to fly to New Zealand aboard British Airways and Air New Zealand aircraft, and not aboard K.L.M. (Royal Dutch Airlines) flights. The complex air rights dispute has been caused by a controversial excursion fare between Britain and New Zealand which is run by Air New Zealand and British Airways, with a transfer at Singapore. News of the dispute was broken in Sydney today by John Stackhouse, a New Zealand journalist who writes the aviation news for the “Australian Financial Review.”

Inquiries in Sydney confirmed that a diplomatic note was handed over in The Hague last week, and that the matter was serious enough to affect, in the long run, the

good relationship that Holland and New Zealand had over the Common Market dairy negotiations. The New Zealand attitude was that apart from Australian flights, the major New Zealand travel destination was Britain. Unlike Australia, New Zealand was ethnically overwhelmingly British among its European population, and the call of “Home” was still strong. Airline sources in Sydneysaid that before the excursion fare was introduced, K.L.M,. which flies to Australia, enjoyed a good market among the Dutch-born emigrants to New Zealand. Even more important were the many Dutch citizens who travelled to New Zealand to see their children and grandchildren. The sources said the Dutch Government was unhappy

- enough that Dutch people in 3 New Zealand could not fly 3 K.L.M. to Holland, but was : even more concerned that i Dutch people living in Hol3 land had to fly by a foreign

airline because Air New Zealand and British Airways had carved up a market. Dutch people, many of them elderly, were not happy about changing planes in the middle of the night in Singapore, where no-one could speak Dutch to them. The solution may be for Air New Zealand to enter special fare ararngements with K.L.M. Stackhouse said that Air New Zealand, in a substantial modification of its previous attitude, had said it was prepared to consider similar interchanges with other national carriers. However, this could lead other countries along the route to raise the issue of the various “freedoms”. There could be practical obstacles in Singapore, while Qantas was also interested in the dispute.