“Communication Bridge”

Mana (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 5, 1 September 1977, Page 5

“Communication Bridge”

A softly spoken man with a gentle sense of humour, Fred Pritchard has been a communication bridge between a major airline company and it’s Western Samoan passengers since 1953. Fred is now passenger sales officer in Air New Zealand’s Quay St. booking office but in 1953 he worked as a general “fix-it” man in Apia. In those days Fred was a one man band whose bustling energy covered reservations, ticketing, accounts, booking hotels, buses and taxis and directing passengers in and out of the “airport terminal”.. . an old run down shed near the lagoon. He chuckles at the memory of escorting passengers to the airport — “First I would canvas all the four hotels and load the passengers into a taxi bound for the airport. Then I would find my own taxi and chase the first taxi along the coast road between potholes, pigs and coconut trees so as to arrive first at the terminal. I would greet them with my scales and weigh in the baggage.” In 1959 Fred decided to move his family to New Zealand so his seven children

could obtain a higher education. The move meant a drop in wages and the loss of a potential title in his village. Today, in his voluntary role as representative and interpreter for the airline’s Polynesian traffic, he finds his working hours spill over into

weekends and nights. He is widely known among the Auckland Polynesian community as the man to contact when you need a Hight.

“Often I get calls at night when someone has received a telegram from their aiga (relations) at home with news of a death and they want the

nearest flight. They are often shy or have no English so I go to their homes to ticket them and organise their money,” Fred said. Air New Zealand feel they have theirvery own “Samoan chief and Polynesian ambassador. ’*

In his early days in the Auckland booking office he used to meet all the Pago Flights and help passengers fill out their entry visas. Now the airline has employed a part-time interpreter to help with visas and Fred visits the airport only when the Prime Minister of Western Samoa or one of the MPs is on a flight.