THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, December 3, 1936. DOMINION AIR SERVICES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23054, 3 December 1936, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, December 3, 1936. DOMINION AIR SERVICES

There seems to be some justification for the ironical comment of the vice president of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce that the importance of Auckland as an airport appears to be receiving greater recognition outside of the Dominion than in it. The time table for the air service between Auckland and Wellington, for which Union Airways, Ltd., has applied for a licence, will, if the pro gramme that is proposed is adhered to, fail to link with existing services in such a way as will admit of through communication by air between Auckland and Dunedin in one day. The agitation in Auckland for the provision of thi§ desirable facility has been persistent, and rightly so, for the importance of a one-day service from Dunedin, at the present time the southern terminal of the trunk air line, tc the largest city in the Dominion must be obvious to commercial as well as private interests. A resolution passed by a semi-public meeting convened by the Auckland Chamber of Commerce lays positive emphasis on the disad vantages of a continued isolation of Auckland in the mattex of speedy internal air travel, and the Government and Union Airways are urged to terminate that isolatior either by extending the existing service from Palmerston North to Auckland, or by providing a connecting service between Auckland and the northern terminal of the through service. It is to be hoped that it may be possible to arrive at some satisfactory arrangement. Under the contem plated time table for the Auckland Wellington service an Auckland traveller will still have to rely on train and steamer to reach a South Island destination, and it is argued with sound reason, that there can be no practical difficulty in the way of reducing the period of travel between Auckland and Dunedin to seven or eight hours There is a suggestion in Auckland that railway and shipping interests have influenced the Government’s policy in

the distribution of air traffic licences —in other words, that a through air service would result in some loss of railway and steamer passenger traffic. If that is the case, it is high time that policy was reshaped to bring it into closer touch with what is definitely the public interest The needs of a progressive community demand the extension of the facilities for quick air travel that are sought in Auckland, and it can only be a matter of time before r recognition of these needs is forced upon those in authority. The through service is bound to come. That being so, it is reasonable to ask that it should be inaugurated with a minimum of delay.