AIR ROUTE LICENCES

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 303, 18 September 1936, Page 10

AIR ROUTE LICENCES

Payment of Compensation

Recommended N.Z. AIRWAYS’ PETITION The payment of compensation or the granting of trunk air routes is recommended by the Public Petitions Committee of the House of Representatives in its report on the petition of New Zealand Airways Limited, which was presented in the House yesterday. Petitioners asked for compensation for alleged unfair treatment in connection with the issue of licences to operate air services in New Zealand, and the committee recommended that the request should receive most favourable consideration. The report of the committee is as follows: — 1. That the petitioners rendered unique service to New Zealand in .developing air-mindedness. 2. That the petitioners carried on this service recognising that in the initial stages of aviation they would be faced with financial loss. 3. That the petitioners reasonably anticipated that such loss would be compensated by profits when the service became firmly established. 4. That the petitioners’ application to the Transport Co-ordination Board, as air licensing authority, was in ordej and was duly considered by the board. 5. That the board apparently laid down two conditions as at least desirable if not essential—viz., (a) That the machines to be used should be of British manufacture; (b) that New Zealand capital should Jte used. 6. That the petitioners complied with both these conditions, the Boeing machines proposed to be used being of Canadian manufacture and the company giving an undertaking that it could and would raise the necessary finance in New Zealand. 7. That the board gave the necessary licences for the main services to companies which did not propose to use New Zealand capital. 8. That in one case the board promised to issue a licence to a company not then in existence which has. in fact, never comp into being. !). That the petitioners, in being refused any worth-while licence, were thereby placed in such a position that they could not recoup themselves for their outlay and the loss they had sustained in developmental work. 10. That having regard to all the foregoing and the voluminous evidence placed before it, the committee recommends that the petition be referred to the Government for most favourable consideration with a view to the prayer of the petitioners being acceded to in some adequate and substantial manner by way of compensation or the granting of trunk air routes.