PLANES RUN FULL

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 104, 29 October 1941, Page 6

PLANES RUN FULL

THE THREE AIRLINES

TASMAN BOOKED FAR AHEAD

BIG MAIL INCREASE

There are times when a passenger on urgent business can get a last-minute seat from Eongotai for north or south, Blenheim or Nelson, but those are the lucky latecomers, for the internal airliners are running full day after day and month after month. The Tasman Empire line runs more than full, and forward bookings now willkeep both flying-boats busy on time-table flights until February, but extra summer crossings will make up leeway. Altogether gone are those early doubts whether the business to be hoped for could justify regular internal airways service and timetable Tasman flights. Gone with them are the forecasts that regularity of internal service, let alone regularity over the Tasman, was improbable to impossible because of weather troubles.

Neither the Tasman Empire nor the Union Airways flight management has departed from the basic principle laid down that safety first comes first, yet the regularity of service is as high as that of any airline. in the world. The flight statistics for the first half-year of 1941-42 (to September 30) give these figures: Tasman, 100 per cent., westbound and eastbound; Wel-lington-Auckland, 100 per cent.; Wel-lington-Dunedin, 99.2 per cent; Cook Strait, run by Union Airways Lockheeds, 99.78 per cent. But for the war the third Tasman flying-boat, the Australia, would long have been on the run, for the three Empire boats were ordered together, but the Australia was retained for essential service in and about Britain; what she has been doing in the last two years will eventually be told. Even had this third boat been available the fleet would still have run more than full, with pressure of war passenger and mail transport and with the still heavier bookings that would have been induced by the availability of more transport, particularly with sea crossings, reduced by the transfer of boats to other and further services. Means to speed up mail and passenger air transport between here and Australia are being discussed as one of the important needs by Mr. Nash on his present visit to Australia.

MORE BUSINESS, FEWER PASSENGERS.

The figures for the Tasman halfyear show how heavy the pressure is: with more and more passenger business offering, indeed demanding, fewer passengers are being carried, for mail and ■ freight have bounded up and have taken a greater proportion of the total weight-carrying capacity of the flying-boats. In the six months to March 31 (i.e., the preceding half-year) the two flying-boats carried 1010 passengers; in the six months just ended only 843 passengers could be carried, because mail weights went up from 57,386 to 88,06s pounds, and freight from 15,424 to 19,236 pounds, or, adding mail and freight payload, from 72,810 pounds to 107,305 pounds. On flights when mail and freight have been unusually heavy the flying boats have crossed with seats mostly empty: on one flight only two passengers could be carried within the all-up weight limit.

The great increase in Tasman air mail and a good part of the increase in freight' come from soldiers' mail and soldiers' gift parcels to and from Egypt, the Middle East, and Singapore. Tasman flying-boats, joining with Qantas and British Overseas Airlines, maintain a close contact with sons and brothers overseas that is beyond a money value today. When Tasman passengers are stood down from the crossings they have booked for it is because "the mail goes through," and the greater part is soldiers' mail.

Certainly, these demands upon the Tasman service come largely from war conditions, but there will follow after the war the new demand for air transport building every day in Australia and New Zealand, even though it cannot at present be met. Both landplanes and flying-boats will then operate regularly across the Tasman. Wellington will be in it or out of it according to the practical interest and the practical provision that is made to bring trans-Tasman. air services here, to a flying-boat base in Evans Bay adjacent to RongotaL

Tasman crossing times have been bettered and bettered again. With the prevailing winds from west to east, Australia-New, Zealand crossings, are, on the average, the fastest, from nine to ten hours, but every so often a crack trip is made. Eight hours was set up a long time ago, then seven and a half,' then a bare seven, and a few weeks ago, with the right tail wind, six hours was just missed—6hr 2min from takeoff to touch-down.

INTERNAL LINES

The main trunk service was increased from six to ten trips a week last November, so naturally the figures for the half-year to September 30 are higher than for the same half-year of 1940. The comparisons (1940 figures in parentheses) are these: —Passengers, Wellington-Auckland, 3140 (2000); Wel-lington-Dunedin, 3302 (2176); Cook Strait, 12,734 (11,778). Mail, Welling-ton-Auckland, 23,6341b (11,8281b); Wel-lington-Dunedin, 27,7451b * (21,5071b); Cook Strait, 11,4451b ; (10,6351b). Freight, Wellington-Auckland, 68501b (43841b); Wellington-Dunedin, 71571b (51401b); Cook Strait, 63,9381b (64,8181b).

INADEQUATE RONGOTAI.

Passengers, mail, and freight by air have increased to the limit of the machines available. Air transport in New Zealand has settled down from the exceptional way of getting there to matter-of-fact, every-day travel, with such 'greater expansion ahead that Rongotai aerodrome, unless very much enlarged, will be unable to handle the air business. Rongotai, the key point of the air transport system of the Dominion, is still the most inadequate of, all the main airports.