Spreading Wings Mean
pp. 37-38 · Read in the full issue
New Problems
Australian and New Zealand aviation officials, in talks in Sydney in early June, were mapping out the details of new trans-Tasman routes which will extend TEAL’s present Aus tralian services and put Qantas across the Tasman for the first time. The new arrangements are expected to operate from October.
T>OTH airlines will use Electras, and Qantas is expected to begin its new services with flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
TEAL will fly to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and will also have the rights to fly to Australia through Norfolk when required. But it is unlikely the present Norfolk services will be altered, and Qantas will continue to operate with a DC4 between Sydney - Norfolk - Auckland, the Norfolk-Auckland leg being under charter to TEAL. TEAL has no air craft which would enable her to take over the service.
The new Tasman services will be so arranged that TEAL will receive more than half the traffic. This is part of the agreement following Aus tralia’s sale of her interests in TEAL to the NZ Government, which took effect from April 1.
Problems Ahead The real problems are still ahead for both TEAL and Qantas, but especially TEAL, as a new compli cated air pattern in the South Pacific is worked out ( PIM, April, p. 21).
One of the trickiest problems will involve re-equipment for TEAL. She will want pure jets for her wider horizons, for use when Mangere air port, outside Auckland, is ready in about 1964. What TEAL buys is of great interest to Qantas and other air lines serving the South Pacific.
New Zealand has made no secret of the fact that, in the words of New Zealand’s Aviation Minister Mc- Alpine: “The Government is con sidering the expansion of TEAL routes to Honolulu and the US, and possibly to other countries.”
Mr. McAlpine has also made re ferences recently to the possibility of BOAC getting back into the South Pacific and across the Tasman, and it is possible that TEAL may come to some arrangement to use BOAC jets
—which is what BOAC would like to see.
Mr. McAlpine says there are “good reasons to expect satisfactory arrange ments” between NZ and French and American airline interests. In fact.
New Zealand has reached the basis of an agreement for rights to and through Tahiti.
Mr. McAlpine has also remarked recently that there were “big possi bilities” in air freight in TEAL’s area —a belief which is shared, and possibly sponsored, by TEAL execu tives (see article on p. 37).
The New Zealand Government would like TEAL to become as im portant in world aviation as Qantas has, and in the next few years all efforts are going to be directed to wards this aim.
Her plans to cross the new horizons, while received with en thusiasm by the Press and public in NZ, are also being looked at in telligently.
Everybody seems to realise that a comparatively small airline doesn’t develop into a big one without a lot of work, a lot of politics and a lot of trouble—especially at a time when Pacific aviation is becoming highly competitive. It will be more so when the full extent of American plans in the Pacific basin are made known following the lengthy investigations that have been going on in the US.
Australia Needed The New Zealand Government is also quite realistic about the fact thal Australian aviation plans must always have a big effect on New Zealand, and that the recent TEAL deal has not meant a parting of the ways with Qantas, but made it necessary for even closer co-operation.
In the meantime, TEAL has an nounced that it will put Samoa back on the Coral Route in June by operating its Electras into Tafuna, American Samoa, on the flight be tween Nadi and Papeete. Connections will be made to Apia through Poly
nesian Airlines, the NZ-West Sama organisation which has recently takJ delivery of two new aircraft.
New Zealand has also helped prepare the public for TEAL’s ni
expansion plans by reminding th«
that TEAL, as a Government airlhi has made a profit of about £1 milli during its 21 years of operations, also earns about £l.B million in ow seas exchange a year—and NZ wou be that much the poorer if otH overseas airlines did the job at prese done by TEAL.
NZ taxpayers have been remind that over the past five years avera annual profit has been £225,000, a* that TEAL yearly spends more thr £70,000 abroad on tourist promotii work for NZ.
And TEAL has a remarkable safe record—no fatal accidents.
Qantas Staff Cuts As TEAL prepares for expansio Qantas in early June announced sti retrenchments because overse earnings were below expectatia and expansion plans for the ye had been reduced.
Qantas chief executive and genei manager, Mr. C. O. Turner, said Sydney that the airline would redn its Sydney staff by 140, out of a ton of 5,250 employees in the Sydnr area.
“The international, political aj economic situation has serious dampened the projected growth international air travel in rece months,” said Mr. Turner.
He said that plans for greater uj of some aircraft had not materialise “for reasons beyond the company control”.
Among the plans were those ft migrant air charters and extra can services.
A wide-spread economy had bes instituted, which had produced sigi; ficant savings, in an effort to avo retrenchments. But the company wj forced to make retrenchments nevr theless.
The announcement brought abca a stop-work meeting of some Qanti maintenance men in Sydney, whr they discussed the retrenchments.
And there was also a threat ofJ strike by Qantas pilots because i trenchments included seven pile with long service.
SPAL Expansion
South Pacific Air Lines announce at the end of May an increase their Super Constellation servio between Honolulu and Papeete fro once weekly to twice weekly. Nel services would leave Honolulu » Mondays and Fridays.