No TAI Extension
p. 26 · Read in the full issue
Trans-Tasman
Monopoly
No TAI Extension To NZ Yet
REPORTS on the proposed ex tension of Transports Aeriens Intercontinentaux Paris-Noumea service to Auckland continue to conflict.
In Auckland, on November 26, M.
Francois Bouchet, representative of TAI, said that he had been con tinuing negotiations with the NZ Minister of Civil Aviation and ex pected to announce official approval “within a few days” Mr. Shand, NZ Minister of Civil Aviation, said the same thing a month earlier.
In Sydney, on December 10, an official of TAI said that no approval had yet been given and that they did not know when a service would begin; it was still be ing held up by the NZ Government.
It is obvious enough who is hold ing up the extension —although in this NZ cannot take all the blame as Australia no doubt is concerned in it somewhere.
The extension of the TAI service to NZ would give New Zealanders an attractive alternative air-route to Europe without the necessity of flying to Sydney to join Qantas or BOAC. Therefore, the new link would affect these two companies as well as TEAL, whose main business is NZ-Australia traffic.
Without detracting from the ex cellent job that TEAL has done in trans-Tasman commercial aviation, it can be said that the monopoly granted them when they began operating across the Tasman 16 years ago, has been an obstacle to the extension of international aviation to New Zealand. Although Pan American and CPAL are per mitted to pick up passengers from point-to-p oi n t for intermediate destinations all along the Pacific route, they cannot pick-up passeng ers for the trans-Tasman flight or even allow their through passengers the normal stop-over privileges in NZ.