Nz, Australia In Battle Of Jets

There were some rankled feelings in airlines on both sides of the Tasman in April, and a letter to the editor of the New Zealand Herald on April 28 seemed to give some of the reasons.

IT is virtually certain”, said the letter, from a New Plymouth reader, “that Tasman Empire Airways is to have Lockheed Elec- H as T^ n inexpiable and amazing about-face from the considered opinion of the airline’s directors.

“Months have been spent in inyestigation of the various aircraft types on offer. Indeed representatives have been sent to England and the USA for this purpose. The field was narrowed down to the Convair 880, Boeing 720, and the Comet, among others. All these ttPes. be it noted, are pure-jets.

After this expenditure of time and money, the choice was announced —De Havilland Comets.

Ihen and only then, did Australia bring full pressure on New Zealand to buy Electras, to tie in with Qantas plans, disregarding the requirements and interests of TEAL.

Surely if the Comets are to be abandoned in favour of Electras, “JfJ* w e can only assume that TEAL is to be subservient to, and dictated to by Qantas.”

Electras for Qantas , New Zealand had not, by early May, made an announcement that TEAL (owned by Aust. and NZ) would switch to Electras to tie in with Qantas plans, nor, in fact, announced that ?* • pl i^ e mam line fleet But Khf ¥ ectras ,- . fVo ßl rri 7 an^as certainly will buy scme E of tr th S om Th W i U hav * seme of them in the air by next TTAwfll fo S llow U £lft °ri QU I tS that IEAL will follow suit, despite some runway problems the Electras will Ann -4..

And despite too, the opposition

of the British Government which has already protested to New Zea land about the rejection of the Comet in preference to “an inferior American aircraft”. Some members of the NZ Cabinet support the British stand because they feel this is a time they should be “buying British” —an attitude which Aus tralia regards, in this case, as not being hard-headed, Australia wants TEAL to have the Electras, and will offer some financial assistance to get them into the air, because it believes that the Electra is better and that it is in fact the Comet which is now outmoded and inferior It believes, too, it will be cheaper in the long run for both airlines, Spares will be more readily, and more cheaply available, and TEAL would not find itself in the position of having to have a costly extra aircraft as a standby. The key to the situation is that TEAL really has the traffic only for less than two aircraft. it is still possible that the NZ Cabinet will reject the new draft agreement, but in that case NZ knows that Australia might take a closer look at its TEAL commit ments, and NZ would find it hard going on its own. There should be an Australian announcement very scon.

Meanwhile, whatever the outcome of the TEAL deal, P-NG people stand to benefit by Qantas’ certain use of the new 450 mph 66-98 ass . Electras on a new trunk service that will pass throueb Port Moresby on its way to Manila and Hongkong, probably next vear Time fo? the Sydney-Port Moresby service, at present done by Skymasters, would be almost halved.

Cruising at 400 mph (450 mph top) the new Electra is almost vibrationless.