AIRPORT FOR AUCKLAND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22818, 27 August 1937, Page 10

AIRPORT FOR AUCKLAND

The Mayor does well to revive the scheme for an Auckland metropolitan airport as a matter of urgency. The project has been allowed to drift for too long. Meanwhile other far smaller centres are equipping themselves with first-class aerodromes, and Wellington is spending very large sums to create an adequate landing ground within four miles of the city's heart. Along with New Plymouth and Palmerston Wellington seeks to make herself the terminal of the Tasman air mail. These hopes may be disappointed if, as now seems certain, flying-boats are used on the service, as they will be on that flying the Pacific. In that case the natural advantages of Auckland should prove decisive. Nevertheless the flying-boat organisation of the Imperial air route has been accepted by the Australian Government tentatively only. It may be that with technical developments, as the Post-master-General hinted recently, land craft may supersede flying-boats. In that case Auckland might have to face the transfer of the Tasman mail to one of the centres possessing a first-class aerodrome. The "unassailable claim to preferment" that the Mayor mentions would then become very shaky. Auckland's claim should be supported by the provision of a fully adequate airport. Then it could scarcely fail. In any case, even if internal aitservices alone are considered, Auckland should furnish herself with proper facilities, as has been done for the handling of shipping, rail and road traffic. An airport should be a matter of civic pride and a modern sign of civic maturity. The scheme should not again be lost to sight in an endless maze of local body negotiations. The onus is upon the City Council to bring it to an issue.