RATE OF RELEASES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 90, Issue 24, 30 January 1946, Page 5

RATE OF RELEASES

THREAT J)F STRIKE REPORT FROM WHENUAPAI Auckland, Jan. 29. As the activities of the Royal New Zealand Air Force show signs of assuming a civil role, serious discontent is growing among certain sections ot personnel who are being retained in the Air Force against their will. A daily return passenger service is being operated from Whenuapai to Harewood (Christchurch) by Dakota aircraft, and a daily return passenger and mail service runs from Wellington to New Plymouth and Whenuupai. Members of the ground staff who maintain the Dakotas at Whenuapai are impatiently asking how long they will be kept in the service to work on aircraft carrying civilian as well as service passengers. They have al ready threatened to strike unless the authorities give them satisfaction. Although discontent in the Ail Force has not reached the proportions existing overseas, the absence of an expression of policy by the authorities has given many ground staff men the feeling that they are being exploited in the interests of State-controlled civil aviation. The men who are most concerned are those serving in the maintenance squadron which handles the Dakotas of 40 Squadron. For some months this squadron has been operating a service to Harewood. Four planes make the return flight on Fridays, two operate on Sundays, and for : the remainder of the. week three aircraft are used.

ATTITUDE OF GROUND STAFF The service was introduced to provide transport lor service and ex-ser-vice personnel, but civilians are able to use it when accommodation on the 30-passenger planes is available. They are charged the same fare as on the civil airways. Although civilian passengers are believed to be in the minority, the ground staff men are taking strong exception to the practice. They contend that they were told, before Christmas that their services would be required only while the transport ot Service personnel was necessary. They hold that the need for such a service should not exist indefinitely.

A few days ago when a Dakota arrived at Whenuapai with three civilian passengers from the south feeling came to a head. Members of the ground staff protested strongly to an officer and told him that unless the authorities clarified their position they would strike. They stated that they were not prepared to maintain aircraft carrying civilians. TRAINING SCHEME Meanwhile, another development in Air Force activity associated with civil aviation is causing more widespread dissatisfaction. Some 20 Air Force officers selected from 40 Squadron and the Sunderland aircraft flight have been sent to the R.N.Z.A.F. station at Wigram, where a civil air navigation and wireless training school has been established for those who are to be employed on the New Zealand National Airways Corporation's air services. One cause for discontent among flying personnel is the fact that candidates were chosen only from the one squadron and the Sunderland flight. Another feature of the scheme is that while they are receiving their training the officers are drawing their Air Force pay. This is regarded as an attractive but costly form of rehabilitation which is not to be fqund in other spheres of employment. Such facilities, it is stated, were not made available to pilots operating the civil services at present.

The school has been established to prepare pilots for their first-class and second-class civil air navigator’s licences, while radio operators will be trained for their first-class radio operator’s licence. Pilots will nlso have to pass tests for a third-class radio oper. ator’s licence. When the men complete the course they will probably bo employed either in the Internal services in New Zealand or in the joint Pacific services which it Is proposed should he onerated by the British, Australian. Canadian, and New Zealand Governments.