TRANSTASMAN AIR SERVICE

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 106, 28 January 1939, Page 9

TRANSTASMAN AIR SERVICE

Flying-Boats Now Almost Ready REASONS FOR DELAY' IN OPENING By Telegraph.—Press As<sn.—Copyright. LONDON, January 26. The managing director of Qantas Empire Airways, Ltd., Mr. W. Hudson Fysh, said today that though the first of the new 24-ton flying-boats destined for the Tasman service was about to be launched at Rochester and an additional two would be launched within a month, this did not necessarily mean that they would be able to fly them to Australia to begin the Tasman service immediately. “The date of the opening of the service,” he said, “depends on the provision of adequate bases and the requisite radio services and navigational aids. Also, an agreement is necessary as to which company will operate the new service.”

He added that the Pacific was increasingly important both from a civil and military point of view. England and America were fully alive to the possibilities of co-operation. “According to reports from the United States, there will be further aviation activities shortly in many north and south Pacific islands,” he said.

“We are surveying the possibilities of an extension of the London-Auck-land route to Fiji, and ultimately to San Francisco, linking the transcanadian service and completing British air lines across the world, affording Australia and New Zealand alternative routes to London.