Airline to argue for extra flight

Press, 18 November 1987, Page 8

Airline to argue for extra flight

By

LES BLOXHAM,

travel editor Christchurch’s chances of an additional weekly air link with Singapore and the clearing of a controversial bottleneck in tourist flows hinge on the outcome of Govem-ment-to-Government aviation talks which will start in Wellington today. A seven-member delegation will argue its case for the extra flight with representatives of the New Zealand Ministries of Transport, Tourism and Foreign Affairs during the next three days. Singapore Airlines maintains it has 16,000 people on the waiting list for flights to New Zealand between now and the end of March. It is seeking approval from the Government to fly a fourth

Boeing 747 service to New Zealand. The flight would call first at Christchurch and return to Singapore via Auckland. The airline’s argument has been supported by the Tourist and Publicity Department which has been forced to stop promoting New Zealand in Singapore and Malaysia because of a lack of airline seats. Air New Zealand is opposing Singapore Airlines’ application. It fears the waiting list figures have been inflated and that any shortage of .seats is only a seasonal problem. It claims there were 400 empty seats on Singapore Airline flights during the last two weeks.

Singapore Airlines in turn says that while there were some empty seats created by the unavail-

ability of space on return flights from New Zealand, most of the empty seats were in its first class and business class sections. The Boeing 747 s used by the airline on its New Zealand routes have 70 first and business class seats. Because of their higher cost, however, they are rarely bought by tour groups. Air New Zealand recently switched from two 8747 to four 8767 flights a week between Singapore and Auckland. Singapore Airlines has three flights, including one direct to Christchurch. An indirect service between Singapore and Christchurch is also provided by British Airways, via Perth, but most of its space is taken up by through traffic from London.