AIR SERVICES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 134, 4 December 1944, Page 4

AIR SERVICES

FUTURE IN AUSTRALIA

GOVERNMENT BOMBSHELL O.C. . SYDNEY, November 24.

-The Australian Government's bombshell announcement that it intends to take over inter-State air services has arrested plans for expansion of aviation by private companies. . Australian National Airways, Ltd., recently placed a £2,500,000 order in America for 16 airliners, including four 67-passenger and four 44-passen-ger planes. • The company also bought buildings in every Australian capital to establish modern airway centres. Until such time as the atmosphere has been cleared these expansions will- be placed in suspense.

Australian private companies have a splendid record, although the present holders are not the pioneers of civil aviation. Their air-mail rate is the lowest in the world, and their passenger fares average 3.2 d a mile, compared with 5Jd a mile in the United States.

In the year ending June 30, 1940, they transported 142,797 passengers without injury or loss of life, flew 12,822,751 miles, and carried more than 16,679,000 letters. Although the war reduced the number of planes in civil aviation from 288 to 185, the passengers carried increased by 60 per cent., the weight of goods by 65 per cent, and mail by 550 per cent.

These figures and the well-laid postwar plans prove that. private enterprise had laid no dead hand on civil aviation in Australia. This record makes all the more difficult an excuse by the Government for nationalisation. The reaction overseas, too, may hamstring the Government's canvass of British, and American capital for, postwar development Manufacturers say that British and United States business men will now think twice about setting up factories in Australia and starting new industries. ADDED DISQUIET. Captain Norman Brearley, a pioneer of civil aviation in Western Australia, added to the disquiet caused by the threat of confiscation by predicting a higher accident and fatality rate in Government-controlled airlines. He pointed to the period in the United States when the Government had exercised control of civil airlines. Losses in lives and money "which ensued caused such an outcry that the Government was unable to continue and restored control to private enterprise. Oppositionists to 12ie Government scheme see in the airline grab the first move to implement Labour's socialisation plan. Stronger Government control of banking has already been mooted, and insurance and interState shipping interests fear they may be the next swallowed. The shipping companies are particularly nervous, as several of them are the main shareholders in some of the aviation companies.