Scaffolding Accident

Until After The Elections

Scaffolding Accident Holds Up TEAL Re-Equipment

T7ITH Tasman Empire Airways in FT the throes of making plans to re-equip, there was an astonish ig announcement from Wellington ]' August that official assessment f TEAL’s requirements, along with hose of the internal line, National drways’ Corporation, might have and be held up because of an official aquiry into a scaffolding accident rhich happened in Wellington some lonths ago.

The secretary of this inquiry com lission is Mr. H. W. Dunn, an aero ngine expert from the Civil Aviation lepartment, who, last year, attended course in Britain on gas turbine ngines.

Mr. Shand (NZ Minister for iviation) in a long statement, said hat Mr. Dunn was the only man apable of acting as secretary of he scaffolding inquiry which, if rue, is a sorry admission on the apabilities of the NZ Public Service.

Observers are inclined to be ynical and openly say that Mr. >unn was assigned to the com lission merely to keep him occupied ntil after the general elections later his year.

Apparently the NZ Government oes not want to make a firm de ision because if it happened to lose he election its successor might have ther ideas about TEAL’s future.

The future of the Coral Route etween Suva and Papeete, taking n Western Samoa and the Cook slands, is in doubt. If TEAL has ny plans for the future it is not stting the public know them.

TEAL recently sent a couple of xecutives to the US and the UK a search of an airliner to meet equipments for the next 10 years.

Since then the general manager, Ir. G. N. Roberts, has gone to London on a business trip and will aspect aircraft for re-equipment of he TEAL fleet.

The two executives returned home /ith glowing reports on the Convair 80, a pure jet American aircraft, idiich has not yet flown.

Should their recommendation be .dopted, Convairs no doubt will perate the trans-Tasman run and he Hibiscus Service between Auck and and Nadi.

They probably could operate in me hop from Nadi to Papeete, but his will leave the intermediate slands without an air service, some hing which they have enjoyed for everal years.

The Solent flying-boat at present m the service, will have outlived ts usefulness by 1959.

TEAL has made it clear that there are no flying-boats anywhere in the world available as replacements for the Solents, and that if the Coral Route is to be maintained it will be with land planes.

Such a policy seems to throw the onus on the Western Samoa and Cooks administrations to provide landing fields for jet aircraft.

With their limited budgets this seems quite impossible.

The Coral Route has never been a payable proposition for TEAL, and the NZ Minister for Civil Aviation (Mr. T. P. Shand) has expressed concern about repeated losses.

Construction of a 9,500-ft con crete runway is to start at Papeete by the end of this year, and the

airfield will be operational by 1960.

When it is complete this will cer tainly mean the entry of a French airline service. Transports Aeriens Intercontinentaux already operates a service from Paris to Noumea and Auckland; a service between Noumea and Vila and Santo; and irregular services between Noumea and Wallis Island.

Teal Makes Profit

In spite of losses on the Coral Route. TEAL made a n3t profit of £NZ236,000 for the year to March 31. This is a record, and due en tirely to a big increase in passenger traffic.

Mr. Shand announced that the profit was almost 300 per cent.

higher than in the previous financial year when the profit was £63,338.

The Coral Route losses were ex pected to total £78,000, but were £30,000 less than that. Last year this route showed a loss of £48,000.

Trans-Tasman traffic increased from 39,000 to 49,000 passengers with the Olympic Games the major factor. The Auckland-Nadi traffic was 17 per cent, higher, and on the Coral Route the rise was 26.1 per cent.

The gross revenue increased from £1,900,000 to £2,300,000. Operating costs dropped from 44.3 and. per capacity ton-mile to 43.4 and. t Anew arrival in Apia, W. Samoa, is the recently appointed Govern ment Printer, Mr. V. W. Wilson, who was accompanied by Mr. G. H.

Burton. Engineer, of the New Zealand Government Printing Office, who is to advise on the installation of the machinery in the new Government Printing Office. t Dr. P. W. Dill-Russell, CBE, Inspector-General, South Pacific Health Service and Director of Medical Services, Fiji, arrived at Apia, in September, for an official visit and consultation with Health authorities in Samoa.

»t A monumental work covering 100 years history of the Melanesian Mission, written by Canon C. E.

Fox, MA, Litt.D., entitled “Lord of the Isles”, will shortly be published

by Mowbrays of England. Cam Fox. now aged 78, recently return! to New Zealand after arrangii publication of the 105.000-woc volume.