South Pacific Air Service

Reorganisa tion Has Pleased Few

WHATEVER the various Govern ment airline chiefs feel about their recent re-organisation of south Pacific services, they are still earning passenger curses on some of the routes—particularly in Fiji where the whole of the former services have been disorganised.

As one irate Island resident ex presses it—“the Coral route has been well mucked up.”

The TEAL flying-boats that run the Coral Route to Papeete are now based on Lauthala Bay, Suva.

Normally they fly a fortnightly ser vice through from there to Papeete, but at the present season they are running a weekly service.

The additional service that TEAL used to run to Western Samoa on three out of the four weeks, has been cut out. This may not matter so much because Western Samoa is reasonably served by the USS Co.’s Tofua and, of course, by the Coral Route.

But all passengers to Tahiti from NZ now fly from Auckland to Nadi by land plane. Nadi is 150 miles and 5 hours of dusty road from Suva by taxi; or 11 hours by Fiji Air ways plane. This costs the customer £8 by taxi (which can be shared) or £4 by plane. This arrangement involves a night in a Suva hotel — also at the customer’s expense.

TEAL will handle hotel and Fiji Air ways bookings but will not make taxi bookings. Other travel agents will do any of these tasks.

Southbound TEAL DC6 services from Nadi to Auckland are arranged to connect with the Sydney-North America service by Qantas. As a consequence, passengers from Suva or the Coral Route arriving at Nadi by the 8 a.m. Fiji Airways plane must wait at the airport until 5 p.m. that day to make their con nection —and then arrive at Auck land about midnight.

IT was certain that when services were reorganised in the South Pacific, for reasons of economy, there would be grouses from some communities. But Suva seems to have come out most unfortunately in the reshuffle; and it appears that little attention has been paid to their air requirements—particularly as regards the Suva-Auckland link which was possibly the Colony’s

most important.

The whole trouble of the Coral Route hiatus at Suva could be solved by the flying-boats calling at Lautoka. This would involve onlv a 20-mile ride from Nadi to the base. There is an alighting area at Lautoka—the Queen’s plane used it last year when she visited the sugar town —and. it sscms likely that TEAL will eventually come round

to it. Otherwise their much ad vertised Coral Route—from New Zealand anyway—will lose much of its glamour.

A Lautoka pick-up would not, of course, help Suva-Auckland passen gers, who would still have to use Fiji Airways or a taxi (or a bus) to make their connection at Nadi.

Sydney-Noumea-Suva

Service

At present Coral Route travellers from Australia through to Papeete may join the TEAL flying-ooats at Suva—the Qantas Sydney-Noumea- Suva service is still operating, although under threat of the axe.

Originally it was intended to withdraw this service in June but there were so many complaints from people all along the line, par ticularly in Noumea and Suva, that the Australian Department of Civil Aviation was called upon to re consider the matter.

At this writing (July 1) the Dept, is still deliberating, and the Qantas service is functioning as usual.

There is a rumour to the effect that the difficulty may be overcome by combining the Sydney-New Hebrides service with the one to Suva—that

is, one plane would make trips Noumea-Suva and Noumea- Hebrides before returning once weekly to Sydney. This would in volve stop-overs in Noumea for some passengers, and the hotel accommodation position in Noumea is not good.

New Caledonia’s protest comes from both the Government and the South Pacific Commission, both of which have made much use of the Noumea-Suva Qantas service to maintain communication with North America (through the international airport in Fiji) and with Western Samoa, French Oceania and other countries eastward of Fiji.

It is vital to the work of the South Pacific Commission (whose headquarters were established in Noumea by the six contracting Gov ernments some years ago) that it has quick and easy access to the 14 South Pacific Territories which it serves. The withdrawal of the Sydney-Noumea-Suva service would embarrass the South Pacific Com mission.

Rose Bay Residents Like It

However, the South Pacific re shuffle has been pleasing to some— notably the residents of Rose Bay, Sydney, who have been agitating for about 15 years to have the fly ing-boats removed from that ex clusive harbour-side suburb.

When the last TEAL Solent left there on Sunday, June 27, that meant that movements in and out of the base were reduced by about 20 a week. Only Qantas and Ansett use the base now.

During the 14 years of TEAL fly ing-boat operation, they have flown 12.000,000 trans-Tasman miles with out passenger accident.

With the withdrawal of the last of the Solents, Wellington, NZ, loses its trans-Tasman service.

TEAL’S DC6s maintain services be tween Sydney and Auckland, Syd ney and Christchurch and Mel bourne and Christchurch only.

Report On Tourist Air

Travel

OUR NZ representative recently travelled from Nadi, Fiji, to Auckland, Tourist Class, in a DC-6 aircraft. He reports on this new means of travel: As far as comfort, meals and ser vice are concerned, for a com paratively short flight, the Tourist Class cannot be faulted. Only the “frills” have been abolished.

Located in the fore part of the aircraft, there is slightly more noise than in the first-class compart ment. One fault noticeable in this aircraft was that, in rearranging for tourist class, the reading lights had not been altered to suit and reading on the night flight was therefore difficult. This matter will no doubt soon be corrected.

Greatest hardship is the reduc tion in baggage allowance from 66 lbs to 44 lbs for the Tourist

passenger, though this is probably adequate for the business man mak ing a quick trip, especially if he wears his heaviest Southern suit for the flight.

But even should he carry the full 66 lbs of baggage, he would still be in pocket on the Nadi-Auckland sector where the excess rate is 3 11 Stg. per pound. The comparative First and Tourist single fares on

this sector are £NZ39/7/- and £NZ3I 10/-, so if the tourist carried 66 lbs he would pay in all about £NZ36 and save £3.

It is certain that, on the Nadi- Auckland sector, where the flight takes over 5 hours, Tourist Class will be popular.

EDITORIAL NOTE: It seems to us that by going “Tourist”, the Suva-Auckland traveller will just

about break even—the cost of get ting from Suva to Nadi will take care of any saving on the Nadi- Auckland fare.

Sohano, on Bougainville, T-NG, will be gazetted as a town shortly.

Kieta, the old district headquarters, is the only “town” on Bougainville but Sohano, now District HQ, since the war, has outstripped it.