FINE RECORD

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 14, 17 January 1941, Page 9

FINE RECORD

FIVE YEARS' FLYING

INTERNAL AIRWAYS

TIME BY THE PLANE

This week Union Airways have completed five years of service, for time, like Electras, flies fast. It is a record of extraordinarily high regularity of service, probably a world record in that respect, for over 99 per cent, of trips scheduled were completed. It is also a record which makes quite laughable the repeated assertion of six or seven years ago that New Zealand was too difficult a country for hope of regularity and safety of commercial service. Fine equipment, the highest degree of maintenance, and the development of an effective radio communication system under the Aeradio Committee of New Zealand, and the skill and judgment 'of New Zealand pilots, administration, and ground staffs are the factors which have .built .the fine record of the first .five years.of commercial aviation in this country. Not only has this five years' regularity been held over the distance, but it has been held day to day from point to point, so that "time by the plane" anywhere along the 750 miles of airline between Auckland and Dunedin is correct within a minute or two either way. MATTER-OF-FACT TRAVEL. Since the outbreak of war and the requisitioning of machines and the enlistment of pilots and other personnel, services have necessarily been considerably curtailed and some abandoned, but still the passenger, mail, and freight figures sre high. Just before the outbreak of war the use of air travel, on a population basis, was higher in New Zealand than in the United States, and very much higher than in Britain or on the Continent; that may even be so now, but statistics are not now available. Certain it is that when there is peace again air travel in New Zealand will boom, for the conditions here have been proved, by the full test of five years of flying, to be good, not bad. New Zealand has simply taken to the air as a new and quicker way of getting there. RONGOTAI THE MAIN AIRPORT. When the main trunk service was commenced, with three de Havilland four-engined planes, on January 16, 1936. Wellington was not in the picture, for Rongotai was not so good as an aerodrome, and, worse than that, the City Council was anything but vigorous in its municipal aerodrome development policy, and officials of the air .held no hope for Rongotai—a poor place, they said, in effect, all right for club flying and playing around, but well-nigh hopeless for commercial and Air Force training. They have been proved very wrong indeed. Rongotai has delivered the goods as New Zealand's main airport, though it must still be greatly enlarged. The first Union Airways run was from Palmerston North to Dunedin, via Blenheim and Christchurch. It ran with some variation of route, until the outbreak of war, when the DH 86's were taken over for Air Force purposes. Rongotai became an airport for Cook Strait machines in December, 1935, and a trunk service airport when Union Airways put on Lockheed Electras, Wellington to Auckland, on June 26, 1937. It was first a daily service, then twice daily, until war conditions and the enlistment of flying staff made it necessary to reduce the runs to three a week, but last November it was brought back to a daily basis on .weekdays. On October 22, 1938, the Wel-lington-Dunedin service was inaugurated, giving a through service from Auckland to Dunedin, 750 miles in 6£ hours. OTHER SERVICES. Cook Strait Airways' machines — two-engined de Havillands—were also requisitioned by the Air Force soon after the outbreak of war, and since November 10, 1939, this service has also been given by the fleet of four Electras by a rearrangement of main trunk time-tables. It was about the same time, too, that the Palmerston North-Gisborne and Auckland-Gis-borne services were suspended on account of war conditions. Another service ran briefly, on trial, only, between Palmerston North and Wanganui in the beginning of 1938. There are today twenty-one Union Airways pilots serving in the R.N.Z.A.F., and the pilot staff, numbering eight at the commencement and rising to 28 just before the war, is now ten. The engineering staff has been reduced from its peak of 58 to 43, in much less proportion because of the insistence upon the highest standard of machine maintenance. With only one or two exceptions, the flying and ground personnel is New Zealand born and largely New Zealand trained. Closely associated with the internal services is the operation of the Tasman flying-boats, but that is another story- Land planes and flying-boats alike run with few empty seats. FIVE YEARS IN FIGURES. Here are the main figures of Union Always' services from January 16, 1936, to Wednesday last:— Passengers 79,209 Mails 538,5961b Freight 133,4551b Miles flown 2,983,362 Hours flown 23,696 Trips scheduled 8,928 Trips flown 8,915 Trips completed 8,871 Percentage of trips completed 99.36 Expressed in another formal aviation style, the mail carriage is 67,923 tonmiles and the airliner passenger business 13^16,884,766 passenger miles, without mishap or even passenger injury.