Preparing For The Boeings
pp. 10-11 · Read in the full issue
From Our Own Correspondent
Honolulu, Jan. 9.
IjLANS for the resumption of the ± Hawaii to Auckland, via Canton Is land, American air service are being held in abeyance, Pan American Airways announced to the U.S. press on December 29.
The company added that the first of the much-publicised new Boeing clippers de finitely will be used to rejuvenate the American North Pacific service from California to the Orient via Hawaii.
Since the loss of the “Samoan” and “Hawaii” Clippers in 1938 this service has become spasmodic.
Pan American spokesmen said that Pacific Division employees have completed a special course of training in handling the Boeing. They attended the Boeing factory and the Wright factory, where the Clipper engines were made. To-day these men, Messrs. Phil Berst and Byrnes Eng lish, are training the base crews at Hono lulu, Midway, Wake, Guam, Manila and Hong Kong.
More than a year ago spare parts for the Boeing were placed at these bases.
Since then, however, unforeseen technical difficulties were met in the testing of the Boeing. Hence the long delay of placing the Clipper into service.
Mr. R. O. Bulwinkel, Pan American manager at Seattle, where the Boeings
are being built, said that the date of the first flight to Honolulu will depend en tirely upon final Government supervised tests. It is hoped to make it on February 19, the date of the opening of the Golden Gate International Exposition at San Francisco.
Accommodation for only 35 passengers will be provided between San Francisco and Honolulu. There is little likelihood of the Boeing being filled. The Martin Clippers, currently in the service, never haye lifted a full load of passengers.
Regardless of progress in aviation com fort, travellers, when it comes to crossing wide expanses of ocean, prefer (at least on the Pacific) to take things easy in the luxury liners which are a feature of North Pacific travel. The steamers main tain their schedules, winter and summer.
Pan American announced that it hoped fares will be reduced at least 20 per cent, when the first Boeing goes Into the service. The company, however, would not say whether the reduction would apply on the short San Francisco-Honolulu run (the busiest section) or simply in the long haul right across to Hong Kong, which is scarcely patronised by passen gers.
The U.S. Government to date has given no decision in regard to the company’s application for an almost all-round 400 per cent, increase in the subsidy paid to the Pacific Division.