No Air Services

Land Planes

Take Over

No Air Services To Hebrides

AFTER June 1, the New Hebrides will be without air connections to Australia. Qantas will cease operating flying-boats on their South Pacific air service and will convert to Skymaster land planes for services between Sydney and New Caledonia, and the branch-line service to

Fiji.

The Fiji branch-line will now terminate at Nadi, of course, which means that Suva is without a direct connection with Australia. This will provide extra work for Fiji Airways, which is already carrying capacity traffic.

Vila and Santo, New Hebrides, will be left out of the service until such time as reconditioning work on war-time strips is completed.

This may take “from three to six months.”

It was originally expected that these strips would be ready for use early June. No one in Sydney will, or can. say what has caused the delay, but the belief in the New Hebrides and Noumea is that the French side of the New Hebrides Condominium is responsible, and that it is the direct result of failure of the authorities who are responsible for Colonial aviation matters in France, to make the necessary funds available.

Skymaster flights from Sydney to Noumea will now have a frequency of three every four weeks (instead of once per week as formerly). The branch service from Noumea to Fiji will now be only once every four weeks, instead of fortnightly.

Flight schedules commencing June 8 are: flights to Noumea (Tontouta) every alternate Wednesday; plus a flight to Fiji every fourth Friday, commencing June 17. 11 M. and Mme. Van den Broek d’Obrenan recently returned to Papeete after visiting Europe.

Formerly President of the Tourist Bureau. M. Van den Broek d’Obrenan has returned with many ideas for increasing tourist traffic to French Oceania These include establishment of a Casino, making Papeete a Free Port for Customs purposes, and the building of more hotels.