Airways
pp. 34-35 · Read in the full issue
Pan American
Freed by Government, the Co.
Mokes Another Start on South Pacific Airmail
Prom Our Own Correspondent
Honolulu, May 1.
AMERICA’S second attempt to get go ing with an airline from Hawaii to the Antipodes (first announced in 1935) started yesterday with the depart ure from San Francisco of the Pan American Airways supply ship “North
Haven”, with a construction gang, mater ials and supplies for the establishment of a permanent base on Canton Island, half way mark on the projected route; and with the departure of a party to organise a base at Noumea, New Caledonia.
As has been reported all along by this correspondent, the company’s plans for the service have long been stalled by the new policy of the U.S. Government, which aims strictly to control American air lines extending into foreign fields.
After an exhaustive hearing into the company’s activities, held in Washington during the past two months, the Govern ment, on April 13 finally granted P.A.A. a license to use Canton Island, but an im portant stipulation in the license is that an officially approved British company may use the P.A.A. facilities at Canton.
It was on April 6, in Washington, that the State Department announced that America and the British Empire had signed a 50-years’ agreement, with per petuation rights, for the joint occupation and administration of Canton “for the purposes of commercial aviation and com munication”.- The Government has appointed Mr.
Robert Campbell, an expert with the Civil Aeronautics Authority, which con trols all U.S. aviation, as C.A.A. director in the Hawaiian islands, and has charged him with the overseeing of such activi ties as those of P.A.A. on Canton Island.
In two months Mr. Campbell will sail
Mr. Robert Campbell, newly-appointed U.S. aviation official in the Pacific.
from Honolulu and inspect progress at Canton. It will take at least four months to prepare the base. About 60 Americans will be employed.
Government observers caution that this move to develop Canton Island does not necessarily mean that Pan American will be the first to use it. British plans for spanning the Pacific are well advanced, they say. Moreover, Pan American is con fronted with a serious shortage of suit able equipment for inaugurating the new services it contemplates.
Outstanding is the North Atlantic ser vice to Europe, the new route from Seattle to Alaska, the increasing German and Italian competition in South America, and an improvement of the P.A.A. North Pacific service to China. The “Clipper” schedules to the Orient have been badly upset lately. Indeed, not one “Clipper” flight, including those of the new Boe ings, has been on schedule since August, 1938