The New Air Services And Invercargill

Southland Times, Issue 23648, 25 October 1938, Page 4

The New Air Services And Invercargill

An important development in commercial aviation in New Zealand took place on Saturday when Union Airways inaugurated a daily through service between Auckland and Dunedin. A secondary service connects Gisborne, Napier and Palmerston North with Blenheim and Christchurch—so that the company s planes now cross Cook Strait four times a day. The AucklandDunedin service takes in New Plymouth; Hawera and Wanganui are linked with Palmerston North; and, in the south, Greymouth and Nelson are connected by Cook Strait Airways with Blenheim and Wellington. Invercargill is thus the only city of its size not included in the network of airlines that covers the Dominion. The disadvantages are two-fold: Southland people are unable to make full use of the rapid passenger service between Dunedin and the northern centres, and their use of the air mail is similarly handicapped. Letters for transmission northwards by air still have to be posted in Invercargill 12 hours before the departure of the aeroplane from Dunedin, so that much of the value of the quicker service is lost. Air-mail letters for delivery in Invercargill are available on six nights of the week, but not until late; and on the seventh night, Monday, there is now no service of any kind, train or bus, to bring them from Dunedin. Every new development in the north makes it more necessary that Invercargill should be connected with the main trunk line at the earliest possible moment: Southland cannot afford to be lagging behind the other, provinces in the use of air transport for passengers and mails. In the meantime, we understand, nothing can be done until the new aerodrome at the estuary has been prepared and put into use. Once that is ready, the inauguration of a daily service to*and from Dunedin will not be long delayed. Work on the aerodrome site has been carried on intermittently for some years; according to earlier plans, the aerodrome was to be ready well before the summer of 1938. The Southland Aero Club, the Invercargill City Council and the Public Works Department are all interested in it, though the department’s interest is naturally more remote than that of the two locally-centred bodies. The Aero Club, the City Council and other organizations like the Progress League and the Chamber of Commerce should spare no effort to have the aerodrome completed at the earliest possible moment and a service started that will put Invercargill and Southland on an equal footing—in so far as that is possible—with the cities and provinces of the north.