The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1930. AVIATION IN NEW ZEALAND.

Evening Star, Issue 20633, 5 November 1930, Page 8

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1930. AVIATION IN NEW ZEALAND.

Civil aviation goes from triumph to triumph from the point of view of individual achievement. It is anticipated that the year 1931 will seo the Eng-land-Australia air route in being. It has already been surveyed—that is to say, the southern or not regularly-flown half, from Calcutta to Australia—and it lias been established that planes could run to schedule all the year round. No other, country has organised or is organising so extended or efficient a service. Nearer home Australia possesses quite a number of transcontinental air services, some of which are under contract with the Postal Department for the conveyance of mails. Presumably it is out of a spirit of unwillingness to be regarded as lagging behind the times that the New Zealand Government has bestirred itself in the matter of regular air mail services. Its offer, made public yesterday, does not, however, suggest that the Government is prepared to give the venture financial backing or itself to risk loss over the venture. Tenders are being invited, and it would appear that according to the annual sum required by the aviation concern so would the postage foes for air-borne correspondence be fixed. Thei’e may bo a genuine demand by business men for such a speeding up as would enable a letter posted in Auckland to reach Dunedin the same day. There is, however, room for doubting whether, unless in very exceptional cases, correspondents would be willing to pay such postages as would enable this service to be maintained day in and day out, without financial loss. In Australia air services are classified either as subsidised or commercial services. The five subsidised services cover air-line distances totalling 5,479 miles, and the total subsidies for the current financial year amount to £95,000. These are for the most part over routes —such as between Derby and Wyndham and between Camoowcal and Daly Waters — which really have no alternative services by road or rail. The subsidies are based on rates ranging from 2s 5d to 3s 5d per mile, reducible as time goes on; in one year the subsidy fell from £120,000 to £95,000. The idea appears to bo that in time these services will become self supporting. New Zealand’s idea appears to bo that her services should lie so from the start, and in view of the somewhat slower land and sea routes available this conception loaves little ground for dissent. One judges from the PostmasterGeneral’s announcement yesterday that there are aviation concerns anxious to test New Zealand as a possible field for passenger services, and that the typo of mail carrying machines would permit of five or six passengers being carried. Business men those days are notoriously not of the stay-at-home typo, but it' may be doubted whether the population of tbo dominion is largo enough to warrant the proposed available flying accommodation being regularly taxed up to paying point. At present the general cry in business is for tbo reduction of overhead costs to a minimum, and with that as a maxim tho number of business visits calling for urgency enough to make the air tho imperative route may prove disappointing. Flying has not yet become really popularised oven in the Old World or in America. Passengers are needed as well as mails if tho services are to pay, and many of tho European services, including that across tbo English Channel, aro only patronised on tho average from onefourth to one-half their full capacity.