DAILY SERVICE TO ENGLAND

Southland Times, Issue 25565, 8 January 1945, Page 5

DAILY SERVICE TO ENGLAND

Australia’s New Air Link (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) MELBOURNE, Jan. 7. A daily air service for civilian passengers between Australia and England will probably be running within a few weeks. The service will be operated with Avro York aircraft by the British Overseas Airways Corporation from England to Colombo, and by Qantas Empire Airways from Colombo to Australia. For the Australian end of the service, the United Kingdom Government has made available Lancaster transport aircraft. Perth will be the first landfall in Australia on the England-Australia run, but it is likely that the service will go through to Sydney, where it will link with the Tasman Airways’ service between Australia and New Zealand. This new service is not connected with that now operated between England and Australia, by way of the United States and New Zealand, by the R.A.F. Transport Command for war purposes. PROPOSED POLITICAL CONTROL Australian Government’s Scheme Criticized (Rec. 9.30 p.m.) BRISBANE, Jan. 7. Political control of Australia’s airlines would be disastrous, declared the former Director-General of Civil Aviation, Mr A. B. Corbett. Mr Corbett said he spoke from 44 years’ experience as a civil servant. Before taking over his civil aviation post, he was Queensland’s deputy Director of Post and Telegraph. Political control would cause delay in decisions, a shortage of pounds at the right time and a lack of expert knowledge, he said. Political expediency would certainly override efficient management. Nothing could prevent political interference and disorganization in any Government-owned industry, in which untrained and inexperienced Ministers assumed the role of managing directors and disregarded the advice of trained executives.

Mr Corbett said the Federal Government already controlled air routes and stopping places, fares and freights, timetables, the rates paid for mails and the safety of aircraft. On the other hand, the companies provided all the capital, carried all the risk of losses and paid about £2,000,000 a year in taxation. Mr Corbett estimated the cost to the taxpayer of the proposed nationalization of the airways at about £10,000,000.