End of Pacific Flying

Turbo-Prop Electras Next Year End of Pacific Flying Boat Era Is Near

The last, long-distance Solent flying-boat services will cease in the Pacific in July, 1960, when Tasman Empire Air ways Ltd. will begin operating the Coral Route from Auckland to Tahiti, via Islands, with turbo-prop Electras.

ACCORDING to Papeete advice, the airport there is expected to be ready for use next May. The present Coral Route ports of call are Laucala Bay, Suva; Satapuala, Western Samoa; Aitutaki, Cook Islands, and Papeete. It is understood that the land airstrip at Aitutaki will be capable of taking Electras, but that Faleolo (Western Samoa’s land airport) will not. Nor would the Cook Islands other airport, Nikao, near Rarotonga.

There are plans for the extension of both these strips, to bring them to Electra standard, but no major work is in hand at either. Unless something is done very smartly, it is obvious that Western Samoa is going to lose its traditional air link with Fiji and New Zealand by the

middle of next year. The Western Samoan Government has not been willing to spend money in airport construction, and while the flying boats operated no effort has been made to keep Faleolo up to more than DC3 standard (though Pan American Airways made an emergency landing there a few years ago with a Boeing Strato cruiser).

It is expected that TEAL will change over from its present DC6 aircraft to Electras for its trans- Tasman operations early next year, Although it seemed, back in July, that Polynesian Airlines, the new Western Samoan airline company, had stolen a march on its opposite number in American Samoa

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iram of the construction work on the new Papeete described in the accompanying story. In 1961 e will be completed to international airport dimen to take the big jets, and will then become an im tant link in the round-the-world service of TAI.

in Airlines Ltd.), which had ying to get a service operat tween the two Samoas for time, it doesn’t appear to orked out like that. ian Airlines Ltd. is in opera jetween Tafuna, American and Faleolo, Western Samoa, rs a week. lesian Airlines only received rational air licence from the ;aland aviation authorities in iber and still has to await States approval for operat -0 the neighbouring territory, a matter of current negotia stween the US and NZ. company has recently ap -1 agents in both Samoas, so ;ly it does not anticipate any ty in claiming “reciprocal . How these two small air nies, in a low wage com

munity of about 130,000, are both going to make a living is probably going to be a much bigger problem,

Subsidy Would Be Welcomed

. J , A straw in this wind was the visit of Mr. Lawrence Cpleman, director of Samoan Airlines Ltd. to Washington in September where he was believed to be trying to obtain the rights to carry all air-mail between American and Western Samoa, and also get a Government subsidy for his service.

Meantime, Pan American Airways new service between Honolulu and Tafuna makes travel between the Samoas and Hawaii cheap and easy

—with tourist rates as low as £5tg.55.5 This new service could open the way to increased tourist activity for both Western and American Samoa. in the latter, however, tourism is bottlenecked by lack of sufficient hotel accommoda tion; and in Western Samoa, which is a far larger and more interesting country than its neighbour, no one at present is really interested enough in organised tourism to make the necessary effort to exploit it.

Transocean's Troubles iransoceans I roubles The new Pan American service to American Samoa has not made Transocean very happy, since it

;d the route. And in ad fransocean has been in the in America because of il difficulties. Money has y been due to employees and iort rent. theless, a Transocean spokes- Id a PIM correspondent in ancisco in September that ipany did not plan to reduce ice to Samoa. ocean is now seeking new in a series of complicated It has sold its huge sub maintenance and overhaul ies at Oakland Airport, San 10. e brighter side, a spokesman Ve have every hope of being a permit to operate Boeing from California to the Far fith another leg running iawaii to American Samoa iney”. people in Samoa would that the Transocean —Pan ,n services be spaced to one flight each week in : at present, when the Pan n plane arrives at Tafuna ifter the Transocean flight.

Jet Airport Progressing

is proceeding on the new iort at Tafuna, following 1 by Congress for a grant ,000 for the first stage of k, which is expected to total 10. ob should be completed in d will be partly financed by nds. The contract has been Belt, Lemmon & Co., of u, who will employ mainly hour. About 100 men are rking on the first stage and rk force will be doubled ar. ob is under the control of ner Wilson, former Public Director at Pago Pago, and Harada, of Honolulu, is g four months on the job alting engineer this year, ugust, a court case which sted six weeks and had I 300 pages of typed evidence d an end, with a reserved . It concerned payment for be taken over for the new p. government offered $lOO per r non-arable land and $450 ble land. Opposition came from the owners of non and who sought higher pay i Arthur A. Morrow heard e which was the longest in tory of the Territory.