BUSINESS AND THE AIR MAIL NORTH

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 253, 22 July 1936, Page 8

BUSINESS AND THE AIR MAIL NORTH

The proposed daily air services between Wellington and Auckland and Auckland and Wellington, an application to license which is now before the Minister of Transport, were heartily commended by the Council of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce last night. Aeroplanes leaving each end at 12 noon and arriving at 3 p.m. would sive the business man “just what he wanted,” said Mr. M. G. C. McCaul. Accordingly the chamber, while looking forward to the establishment of a daily through service from Auckland to Dunedin and vice versa, via Wellington, declared its wholehearted support of the intended North Island trunk service, with the important, qualification that it considers the route should embrace Wanganui. For mails especially, the suggested North Island timetable will offer big advantages over that of the present service to the South Island. The business communities of Wellington and Auckland and Wellington and Christchurch, considered in those pairs, enjoys a wonderful mail connection already. Letters posted in Wellington at the close of the business day are in Christchurch first thing next morning, and in Auckland early in the forenoon. So also letters posted in Christchurch for Wellington and in Auckland for Wellington. The air mail south offers a faster means of reaching Dunedin, and the northward service under its winter timetable enables morning postings in Christchurch to reach Wellington the same afternoon; but generally the territory covered by the present flying routes is so well served by surface postal facilities that the air does not attract a payable quantity of mail. Between Wellington and Auckland, however, the aeroplanes will provide an ideal complement to the carriage of mail by rail —and also, indeed, to railway passenger transport. If business people are wise they will take full advantage of the opportunitv thus given; because the extent and enthusiasm of their support will be an important factor in determining future Government policy toward the extension of civil aviation in New Zealand.