ONLY QUESTION OF TIME

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19339, 1 June 1937, Page 12

ONLY QUESTION OF TIME

PACIFIC AIR SERVICE U.S. OFFICIAL’S OPINION “TIME-TABLE” CROSSINGS (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, last night. No doubt that New Zealand and Australia will soon be linked with the United States and Canada is entertained by Mr. W, T. Miller, superintendent of airways of the United States Bureau of Commerce, who was a through passenger for San Francisco by the liner Mariposa, after making an investigation into the possibilities of a regular commercial and mail air service across the Pacific. As a result of his investigations in New Zealand and Australia, he said, he is convinced that it will not be long before 'the recent survey flight across the Pacific by the Pan-American Airways’ Clipper is succeeded by “timetable” crossings. Suggestions have been made that New Zealand might possibly bo left out of a route of the regular mail and passenger air-servicc, but Mr. Miller said lie considered New Zealand was the most important link. Canada would also have to be included to his mind. The United States and Canada not only thought as one country, but were also working as one country, and such an air service as lie envisaged would be between “Australasia and North America.” Business Prospects “One of the main objects of my visit,” said Mr. Miller, “was to ascertain, as far as possible, how much business would be offering for such a service across the Pacific, and I have come to the conclusion that it is only going to he a very short period of time before New Zealand, Australia and America are going to be linked up with a fast passenger and mail service by air. Whether it will be sponsored from America or the Antipodes it is not for me to say, but justification for such service is there. My view is that the Governments of the countries concerned will have to get together and come to some suitable arrangement. Every detail will have to be worked out before any service can be established.” It might easily be, he said, that there would be sufficient encouragement for more than one company to run a service, but nothing positive had yet been arrived at, and the whole thing was a matter for the respective Governments. If it was decided to assist an air service, no doubt a reciprocal agreement would have to be drawn up under the United States regulations. The Tasman Service Mail was carried under contract, and for this reason he would not say whether the Pan-American ' Airways company would be responsible for the service. If it was organised tenders for the mail contract would have to be called, and the successful tenderer would have the right to a mail monopoly by air. It was to be remembered, however, that Pan-American Airways was the only largo international operator in the United States. Its officers had done a very good job in bringing the Clipper ship down to Auckland on the recent survey flight. Once tlie service was started, he said, the world would be encircled by air routes, because a regular service across the Atlantic could not be far off, and once the Pacific was spanned, or even before it, regular passenger and mail flights across the Tasman between New Zealand and Australia would have to come. The flight across the Tasman should be accomplished by aeroplanes leaving one terminal in the morning and arriving at the other in the afternoon. Flying at high altitudes, possibly an average of 12.000 ft., would probably be necessary in order to avoid storms in certain areas.

Mr. Miller is to make a report on his visit to New Zealand and Australia to his department. In each country lie took the opportunity of travelling by the | rineipal air lines.