Trans-Pacific Services to be

Allowed Fly Tasman

IT is expected that an air-agreement will be signed shortly which will make it possible for the three trans-Pacific air services to fly between Australia and New Zealand.

The three companies affected will be Pan American Airways, British Com monwealth Pacific Airlines, and Canadian

Pacific Airlines. At present, aircraft be longing to these companies are not per mitted to complete the natural route between North America and Australia by flying the Tasman. PAA and BCPA fly a special service to Auckland, NZ. CPA has not bothered to enter this field.

It is expected that after the agreement is signed between the respective govern ments all three companies will fly from San Francisco (and/or Vancouver) to Honolulu, Canton Is., Nadi (Fiji), Auck land and then Sydney. Under the old set-up, many outward bound services from San Francisco to Auckland were lightly and uneconomically loaded. For example, a BCPA airliner on a normal run flies from Sydney to North America, back to NZ, back to America, and finally back to Sydney.

At present the PAA planes call at Tontouta, New Caledonia. Presumably, some arrangement will be made to con tinue to service this territory.

Although the planes will be permitted to fly between Auckland and Sydney and vice versa, they will not be permitted to pick up passangers in Auckland for Sydney, or passangers in Sydney for Auckland. That traffic belongs to Tasman Empire Airways, “the chosen instrument” of the Governments of Australia and New Zealand.