Skybus publicity boost planned

Press, 24 October 1980, Page 1

Skybus publicity boost planned

Boosted by a membership of between 500 and 600, organisers of the Skybus venture are about to launch a publicity campaign aimed at attracting thousands more members by the end of the year. .Cross-winds may have struck the Skybus’s flightpath, however, with the resolution of the Canterbury Aero Club’s council that it “declines the invitation to join or support Aqua Avia Society, Ltd, in its Skybus venture.” A director of Aqua Avia, Mr W. M. B. Thompson, said from Auckland yesterday that the Canterbury Aero Club had not been invited to join the venture. Aqua Avia had agreements with only two aero clubs — the Hauraki and Piako aero clubs in the North Island — but it would like to ap-

proach other clubs to explain ; the; venture ? and the effect it could have on the

aero-industry, he said. The •society’s, publicity campaign is planned to - include Christchurch and Auckland' next week, although arrangements have still to be finalised for newspaper advertisements. Mr Thompson said that the present membership had been' mainly “unsolicited” as it had come from people who had joined since the venture was announced on October 7 - and before Aqua Avia placed in the “Dominion” last Saturday . its first newspaper advertisement formembership. '• . .3 “We are quite pleased with the. amount of response,” Mr Thompson said. Membership had risen “briskly” in the last week since the Wellington

newspaper advertisement, but it had come only from the Wellington region.

The venture’s membership target is vague: early publicity has set a goal of 20,000 to get the scheme off the ground, but the Aqua Avia Society’s directors have- said that “even half” this figure would be enough to ensure part of the society’s plans would be successful. Mr Thompson and Mr J. G. Rutherford, of Christchurch, are confident that the ■ society will ■ start international charter flights by December. The prospects _ of, internal -•iflights, running in corh- ; petition against Air New Zealand, are rather hazy and depend mainly on the support Aqua Avia can raise through its campaign.