New company to buy Nationwide Air

Press, 28 December 1978, Page 4

New company to buy Nationwide Air

A new public company has been formed to take over the business of Nationwide Air, which ferries cars by air between Wellington and Christchurch.

The new company will be known as Nationwide Air International, Ltd. According to its chairman, Mr H. J. Davidson, it will be registered with a fully paid capital of SIM, and will have about 20 shareholders. Mr Davidson said that the new company would buy the shares of Nationwide Air Akarana, Ltd, a subsidiary of the Car Haulaways Corporation, which is in receivership.

The receiver of the Haulaways Group had neither the resources nor the expertise to continue the air service, Mr Davidson said. The new company' would have no connection with the Haulaway's Group, particularly Nationwide Air. In addition to Mr Davidson, the company’s directors will be Messrs W. M. B. Thompson, C. Giltrap, J. G. Stubbs, D. A. Thompson, and M. R. Tracy, all of Auckland; and Messrs G. Jones and J. G. Rutherford, of Christchurch. 4

Nationwide Air has had a short but complex history.

In early November it began a commercial short-haul air cargo service between Christchurch and Wellington, using Carvair aircraft. A fortnight later, however, a petition was lodged in the Supreme Court by a Hamilton firm, asking for a court order winding up Nationwide Air.

In mid-December, the company placed itself in voluntary receivership, along with its parent company. A hearing into the application for a winding-up order was adjourned, pending consideration of a proposal for formation of the new company. It was submitted that this would result in clearance of Nationwide Air’s debts.

This company now has its car ferry service between Wellington, Christchurch, Nelson, and Blenheim. The two Carvair aircraft which it uses are DC4s, modified by lifting the cockpit above the original fuselage and adding front-opening doors, in the manner of a Bristol Freighter.

The Haulaways Group had applied for two air licences

for car freighters last year. However, it withdrew the application in the face of objections from bodies such as Air New Zealand (then N.A.C.), the Shipping Corporation, the Union Steam Ship Company, Safe Air, Mount Cook Airlines, and the Railways Department. Subsequently, the groupowned company, Air North, Ltd, was renamed Nationwide Air. Air North held a licence for a service of the type envisaged.

Nationwide Air as it now was, then bought Air Akarana, Ltd, which possessed a similar licence, and the new company was renamed Nationwide Air Akarana, Ltd.