SYDNEY TO LONDON DAILY SERVICE

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 3, 28 September 1944, Page 5

SYDNEY TO LONDON DAILY SERVICE

Flight Of Sixty Hours AIR TRANSPORT PLANNING IN EMPIRE; (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (.Special Australian Correspondent.) (Received September 27, 7 p.m.) SYDNEY, September 27. Plans for one of the world’s fastest post-war air services between Sydney and London are expected to be placed before the Federal Government soon. Planes may leave each terminal daily and make the 13,000-mile flight in 60 hours. The sponsors of the plan, according to the political correspondent of the Sydney “Daily Telegraph,” are likely to be British Overseas Airways. Such a service was forecast by the chairman of the company, Lord Knollys, when he visited Australia and New Zealand last March. The service would be started immediately after the war. The “Telegraph” says that while Sydney is the natural Australian terminus for such a service the present facilities are inadequate and great reconstruction ■would be required at the Mascot aerodrome. Much better facilities are available at Melbourne, but Sydney rather than Melbourne is the centre of Australia’s internal air routes as well, as the terminus of the transtasman service and the probable terminus of the Pacific service that is also to bo established'after the war. In the internal civil aviation field the defeat of the referendum proposals has affected the Government plans. The problem has been investigated by, a Federal Cabinet sub-committee, which has suggested three different lines of approach to the problem. Possible Corporation. One is that civil aviation should continue largely as it did before the war till tlie Commonwealth obtains full control over aviation permanently, either by another referendum or by a transfer of powers from the States. The second suggestion is that a merger company should be constituted in which the Government would hold the majority of shares. The third is that a wholly Government statutory corporation should be established to operate all the interstate airlines. However, it is felt that constitutional difficulties may militate against early attempts by the Government to rationalize Australia’s internal civil aviation services. In the international field, it is reported here that an Empire conference on postwar aviation is likely within the next two months. Ottawa is expected to he the venue. It is believed this conference will discuss an Empire-controlled world air service, which was suggested by Australia and New Zealand as an alternative to an internationally-controlled service, a proposal already rejected by foreign countries. An official quarter says that an Empire world service Would be feasible because there are Empire bases practically right round the world.