Increased Fiji-BSIP
p. 29 · Read in the full issue
Air Services
From a Suva Correspondent The demand for air travel between Fiji and the Solomons has been so good that Fiji Airways on December 1 will step up their fortnightly service to three flights every four weeks.
From March 1, there will be a weekly service.
Announcing the additional service, Mr. Chris Ritchie, man ager of Fiji Airways, said the airline would require another aircraft so that it would guarantee the increased frequency.
It had sent its chief engineer, Mr.
K. P. Beohm, overseas to examine several aircraft before deciding on a selection.
Mr. Ritchie said the new aircraft would be another Heron, which would bring the fleet to four Herons, plus a Drover, and the single-engine Piper Caribbean bought from Korolevu Air Transport. The new Heron would be Series 2 type, with a retractable undercarriage. (The present Herons, Series 1, have fixed undercarriages).
The new Heron will be 30 mph faster than the Series 1 and will significantly reduce the time on the longer sections of Fiji-Solomons route.
With the increase in the services on December 1 there will be a rise in air fares. The new fares (Fijian currency), with the old fares in brackets for the various sections of the route, are: Suva-Nadi £4/14/- (£4/14/-); Nadi-Vila, £25/19/- (£2l/16/-); Vila-Santo, £9/1/- (£7/12/-); Santo-Honiara, £27/17/- (£23/8/-).
A (for DC3’s and Bristol Freighters).
Dry weather allowed the DC3 to land with the equipment.
At Mt. Hagen, in the Western Highlands, work is continuing on a new 5,200 ft airstrip at Kagamuga, about five miles from Hagen’s present strip, which is to be closed because it is too small.
The new strip will take DC3’s and Bristol freighters, said P-NG’s Direc tor of Works, Mr. J. Glen, in Nov ember, adding that it would be cap able of extension to take DC6 types.
The strip will have a top layer of four inches of packed clay brought from hills half a mile away. The topping will give a hard, impervious surface. Local labour has now exca vated 5,200 ft of black topsoil from the strip and this is being replaced by a sand and gravel mixture from nearby rivers.
Work is expected to be finished by the first quarter of next year.
Runway and apron improvements are to be made to Lae airstrip next year. Lae is an important interna tional strip in New Guinea, but there are no immediate signs that it is to be brought up to the importance it had not long after the war, when it completely overshadowed Port Moresby’s £2-million Jackson’s Air port.
There has been some agitation in Lae recently for the airstrip to be returned to its former glory.
An editorial in the New Guinea Times-Courier of November 14 pre dicted that when the Australian inter nal airlines replaced their Electras with Boeing 727 jets in 1964, the Electras would be used for the New Guinea service in place of the DC6B’s. But at present Jackson’s was the only New Guinea airport capable of handling the Electras, said the Courier.
Figures released in November show that Jackson’s handled most passen gers in New Guinea for the year ended June 30, 1962, with Lae, Rabaul and Madang following next in order. Port Moresby handled 64.000 passengers (7,431 aircraft movements) compared with Lae’s 62.000 (6,624 movements). In pas senger traffic Port Moresby ranked 20th in importance of all P-NG and Australian airports, and Lae ranked 28th.
However, Madang easily took the honours for the greatest number of aircraft movements per year in P-NG and the greatest amount of freight shifted. Madang had 11,150 move ments last year and carried 17,180 short tons of freight, compared with Port Moresby’s 4,202 tons and Lae’s 6,088 tons.