STATEMENTS DENIED

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 24 August 1935, Page 4

STATEMENTS DENIED

Air Service From Honolulu to Dominion Most Improbable

HAROLD OATTY’S COMMENT

NEW LINE TO HONG KONG (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, To-day. Mr Harold Gaty, who is technical adviser to the United States Army and Air Force, as well as ’ to the PanAmerican Airways, on his arrival to-day denied statements attributed to him by the Sydney Press and cabled to New Zealand on Thursday. He said he had no idea of negotiating with the authorities here regarding an extension by Pan-American Airways of its Pacific air service from Honolulu to the Dominion. .Such an- extension, he was most improbable. An air service was payable only w’hen frequent trips were made. ’Planes could not be laid up for weeks at a time. Mr Gaty said flying boats to ship 24 passengers, with a speed of 150 miles an hour, would be used in a San Fran-eisco-Hongkong service which would start about next November. This service, he. thought, "was fully justified by the large number of passengers now carried by ships. Fares would he double the steamer fares, but the ’planes would take three and a half days compared with 18 days at least by ship. Mr Gaty said he agreed with Sir Charles Kingsford Smith that American ’planes should at present be used for the Tasman service.