THE PRESS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1981. Wellington’s Tasman link

Press, 29 October 1981, Page 20

THE PRESS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1981. Wellington’s Tasman link

In view of its mounting losses, Air New Zealand has little choice but to withdraw the last of its DCB passenger aircraft from service. The DCBs have served the airline faithfully since it entered the jet age in the mid-19605; they are now relatively inefficient when compared with newer and much larger aircraft. Undoubtedly the DCBs would have been retired earlier had the airline not been committed to providing Wellington with a direct link across the Tasman.

The Wellington runway is too short for Air New Zealand’s larger and more efficient, wide-bodied jets. Instead, the airline has been forced to keep two DCBs flying at considerable expense specifically to meet Wellington’s demands for an international service. The airline did this alone until January when Qantas introduced its special-performance Boeing 747, which can use Rongotai’s runway. Qantas’s return to the route has been fortuitous. It has given Wellington a service with greatly increased capacity for passengers and freight; it has saved the New Zealand taxpayer $3O million or more, which is the estimate for lengthening the runway; and it has removed the need for Air New Zealand to retain its DCBs.

For Air New Zealand to maintain its international flights in and out of Wellington, at a continuing loss of $l2 million a year, would have been illogical. Wellington people would doubtless like to see the Air New Zealand flag carried abroad from the capital city, even if Canberra has no international flights at all. Much more important is the fact that Wellington will still have a direct link with Australia. . •■■ •

Qantas has given an undertaking to increase its services to make up for the number of seats that will be lost when the DCBs are withdrawn on December 15.

Although the extra capacity of the bigger Qantas aircraft will mean fewer than the present 12 flights to Australia each week, the city will at least retain a daily service. Air New Zealand might seek a leasing arrangement with Qantas whereby some of the flights would in fact be operated with Air New Zealand flight numbers in much the same manner as Qantas leased some of the DCB flights before the arrival of its special-performance Boeing. Such an agreement would allay fears already being expressed in Wellington that it has been abandoned by Air New Zealand and left to the whims of a foreign airline.

Air New Zealand has indicated that it will revive its Wellington-Tasman services as soon as it has the right equipment to be efficient and economical. This will not be until the airline takes delivery of new medium-range aircraft, the type of which has yet to be decided upon. The airline would be foolish in the meantime to contemplate the purchase of a special type of aircraft principally to restore its link between Wellington and Australia; nor does it make sense to adapt and use, as has been suggested, one of the Boeing 727 s bought recently for the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Such a move would simply add to Air New Zealand’s costs at a time when it is trying desperately to produce efficiencies by standardising its international fleet to one type of aircraft — namely, the Boeing 747. . While the possible loss of 300 jobs would be an unfortunate consequence of withdrawing the DCBs, this consideration alone is insufficient reason for persevering with an uneconomic air service, particularly when it is superfluous. Regrettably, such drastic action is necessary, and is to be expected, when a company is losing a quarter of a million dollars a day.