TASMAN AIRWAYS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 18, 22 January 1943, Page 4

TASMAN AIRWAYS

FULL FLYING-BOATS

HIGH REGULARITY

If the two Tasman Empire Airway? flying-boats are not the busiest in the world in carrying passengers, mail, and express freight, they aye headed by very lew regular air- services, or sea or land services either. In the two and a. half years (April, 1940, to Deceniber, 1942) since the commencement of the service the total load factor has averaged 87.5 per cent., though it was loaded downwards by early percentages in the 60s. katterty the load factor has been consistently we n over 90 per cient.,- and on many flights, as. m* tending passengers Ipng on the waiting list have realised, the , flying^poats. have carried capacity loads in passengers, mail, and freight, When the Tasman service was in the lohg-4rawn*p.ut discussion stage, when this company and that was being prompted (none of these first plans became fact) prospectus assurances of regui^rity of service as high as 50 per pent, were officially regarded with reserve, the Tasman's weather being What it was supposed to be. (The same was said about impPS.sib.Uity of regular service within New Zealand., before the. services did get under way and maintain extraordinary regularity, almost JOQ per. cent.) In the two and a, half years only 10 put of ,404 scheduled runs have been cancelled or delayed; the regularity figure works put at 97.25 per cent. Flight times I have, of course, varied a gPPd deal, I depending on head winds or following winds. Fastest time was made { west-east in October, 1941, 5 hours 55 minutes. Fastest east-west time, ! against the prevailing winds, was 7 I hours 30 minutes, in October last year-

The total number pf passengers carpied to the end of last year was 5093. \ before the-outbreak of war a fair proportion of passengers were on through trips, connecting at Auckland With American services, either ai? or sea, but civilian traffip now is almost wholly between Australia and New Zealand, with odd passengers from further afield. IMfAIL ANO FREIGHT. The character of the ma#, of which 326,2151b h^ye been flown, has also ohanged as a result of the war, and is much less than it would have been had the Empire through mail service not been broken off by war in the Pacific. At times, when the through mail service was running, mail matterwas so heavy that passenger loading had to be greatly restricted. Probably when air transport comes again with peace mail and passengers will have to be flown separatelyFreight has changed tod. Pre-war freight covered an extraordinary range of industrial goods, special materials, spare parts needed in record hurry, quite a lot of precious and semirpreoious stones from the Indies and Malaya, and, always., films. Sppe parts, special parts, a bigger rang? than ever come through by air now, but civilian freight is Jighter. Films still come by air. Tptal freight carried is 112,7131b. . . The passenger-miles to the end of the year we*e 6,752,260. Other figures are:—Mail ton-mite?.; WsM\ ****&£ tpn-miles. 51,689; mijes flown, 527,760. That is about 22 times round the world at the Equator. Altogether fee .fly^ ing-boats have been in the fur, pn. service crossings, fpr 3.489 hPU?sWEATHER FORECASTS. The highest degree of maintenance, pf engines' and aircraft, efficient navigation, and improved meteorological services have made possible the" remarkable regularity with which the flying-boats have crossed the Tasman. Pilots no longer take off in the hope that the special predictions made W them will be near the mark, but W"h fair certainty that what has been, forecast will be the weather they will fly thrpugh. Every crossing builds better the understanding of Tasman weather vagaries; weather logs are kept for j each'flight. , , i Metporplpgical services have assist-1 ed aviation tremendously, and aviation has assisted meteorplagists equally greatly- Meteorology has become a new and more exact science since regiilar flying necessitated that that must be so. Restrictions upon exchange of meteorological data and ship silenpe have handicapped the wether services substantially, but, even so, Tasman forecasts are far ahead of what was possible eighteen months ago, when the flying-boat service was inaugurated,