Fiji Airport

Decision Likely This Month

IT is expected that the meeting of the South Pacific Air Council, which was to have been held in Wellington, New Zealand, in August, and which at the last moment was postponed, will be held this month. Many important matters are up for decision.

The most important matter for con sideration is the report of the expert committee which examined the relative claims of Nadi and Nausori airfields, to decide which is to be recognised and equipped as Fiji’s international airport.

On the assumption that the choice will go to Nadi, the New Zealand air and Fiji administrative authorities have gone right ahead with the improvement of Nadi on a considerable scale: but, until the Council has received its report and given a decision, the uncertainty remains.

With one exception, all factors are in favour of Nadi. But the exception— namely, that Nadi is 130 road miles from Suva, the principal town of the South Pacific, while Nausori is only 12 miles away—is very important, from Fiji’s point of view, at any rate.

There is no suitable road or air link between Nadi and Suva, and the difficulty and expense experienced by trans pacific air travellers in reaching Fiji’s capital from the international airfield is one of the most exasperating things connected with Fiji travel.

Nausori airfield is a grassy strip, with a few poor shelter sheds beside it, laid down in a region that is subject to frequent cloud and rain-storms. Nadi, on the other hand, has an excellent hard strip in Fiji’s driest area, and it is now equipped with elaborate buildings, ser vices and amenities. One gets the im pression that both Fiji and New Zealand officialdom would bitterly resent an order to transfer all this equipment and or ganisation from Nadi to Nausori, Fiji is being represented at the Council meeting in New Zealand by the Colonial Secretary, Mr. J. F. Nicoll. and Mr. P. H.

Nightingale.