TASMAN AIR SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 29, 3 August 1939, Page 23

TASMAN AIR SERVICE

PASSAGES BOOKED

WOMAN AMONG APPLICANTS

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

SYDNEY, July 29,

Although the trans-Tasman flying- . boat service will not start until Oc- ! tober 1 at the earliest, nine applica- ; tions have been made in Sydney already for seats on the first flying-boat to cross the Tasman on the regular service, irrespective of cost. Six business men, two doctors, and one woman have applied to the Sydney office of Qantas Empire Airways for seats, and there have been eight other tentative bookings. The applicants have been listed in the order in which they have applied. Although only purely formal matters remain to be attended to, Tasman Empire Airways, the company which will operate the service, has not yet been officially formed. The company's head office will be in Auckland, and the service will be controlled from! there. I

No fare has been fixed for the Tasman crossing, but it may be between £20 and £25 single. The journey will take about eight hours, and there will be either two or three trips weekly, in each direction. The three new flying-boats for the service will have a range of 1800 miles with a maximum petrol load of 1760 gallons against a 40 miles an hour headwind. In still air, the range will be 2100 miles. The payload and crew will weigh 2\ tons, in addition to fuel for the 1330 miles journey. Normally, the crew will consist of four, leaving more than two tons available for passengers and mails.

The Empire air mail link between Southampton and Sydney will be considerably strengthened by a scheme, details of which reached Sydney this week, for the temporary allocation of latest-type British civil aircraft. The three new flying-boats which will operate the Sydney-Auckland service have successfully completed their flying tests. The Aotearoa will be flown to Auckland shortly, and will assist in preparing the trans-Tasman service for the opening. The Awarua and the | Australia have an even more important task before they fly out to take up the new service. With the Clyde, another of the new-type stressed-up boats, they will operate temporarily the Indian section of the present Empire air mail route, replacing between Alexandria and Karachi the old, slow landplanes which have been flying supplementary services. Landplane crews thus released will return to England for training in flying tha Armstrong Whitworth Ensign monoplanes destined ultimately to operate a permanent landplane service between London and Calcutta.