Airline’s backlog nearly cleared

Press, 2 July 1979, Page 1

Airline’s backlog nearly cleared

The backlog of Air New Zealand passengers should be cleared from today, a spokesman said yesterday. The next outgoing flights to Hong Kong and Singapore would take the last passengers delayed by the American Federal Aviation Administration’s ban on DClOs, said the public relations officer for the airline (Mr C. Saxton). A chartered Pan American 747 and an Air New Zealand DCB had been ferrying passengers from Tahiti and Rarotonga to Los

Angeles, where DClOs were unable to land, said Mr Saxton. Pan American and U.T.A. had also increased their capacity on the route to cope with the backlog. The backlogs could have appeared bigger than they were because many passengers were booked on two or three other airlines, said Mr Saxton. It would be impossible to say how many passengers Air New Zealand had lost to other airlines, he said. However, the airline had lost $6 million and would continue to lose $750,000

each week while United States air space remained closed, “We have had it pretty bad, but others have had it worse,” said Mr Saxton. NZPA-Reuter says from Ottawa that Canadian air space was reopened yesterday to DC 10 flights by airlines whose countries have declared the aircraft airworthy. “This is a promising sign,” said Mr Saxton. “Canada and the United States have similar aviation interests.” The Director of Civil Aviation (Captain E. T.

Kippenberger) said yesterday that aviation officials hoped the F.A.A. would lift its ban in the next two or three days, the NZPA reports. “The F.A.A. was supposed to meet today,” said Captain Kippenberger. “We were told that certain investigations would be completed and reported to the F.A.A. committee investigating the DCIO. We hoped these results would bring us closer to getting a clearance for DClOs,” he said. The Canadian Federal Transport Department has

notified 16 countries that their airlines’ DClOs could use Canadian air space again after their Civil Aviation Department issued airworthiness certificates in accordance with the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, said a spokesman.

The spokesman said the ban was lifted for DClOs from Belgium, Finland, New Zealand, Mexico, France, West Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Britain, Spain, Turkey, and Yugoslavia.