Pioneer Airline To Be Nationalised

Northern Advocate, 14 June 1947, Page 8

Pioneer Airline To Be Nationalised

(Special) WELLINGTON. This Day. Air Travel (New Zealand) Ltd., one of the country's pioneer airlines and which (lew the first regular air mail service, will shortly be taken over by the National Airways Corporation. This service, which was the only remaining unnationalised air service in New Zealand, operates routes totalling 387 miles in the West Coast-Nelson districts, and owns four machines. These are two Dc Havillnnd Fox Moths, a De Havilland Rapide. and a De Havilland Dominie. Three routes are down by the company, which operates from Hokitika. Daily services are from Hokitika to Nelson, 163 miles; Hokitika to Weheka, near the Franz Joseph Glacier, 84 miles; and twice weekly Hokitika to Okuru, in South Westland, 140 miles. New Zealand’s first regular air mail service flown by air travel was at that time (December, 1934) one of the few in the world on which no surcharge was made for the air transport of mail. PIONEER SERVICE It is understood that arrangements for the transfer are almost completed and that the company will be taken over within the next two months. Captain J. C. Mercer, founder of the company, suffered injuries from which he died when the company’s De Havilland Dragonfly crashed on Mount Hope, about 25 miles from Nelson, on July 1, 1944. Another passenger was killed outright and the five other occupants were injured. The Minister of Civil Aviation (Mr Jones) said at that time that Captain Mercer has been the means of opening up what hitherto was a little-known area of New Zealand—the. West Coast of the South Island.