Everyone’s Not Happy

With BSIP Air Link

From a Honiara Correspondent The long-awaited link air service between the British Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides, which materialised at the end of 1961, and is now operated by Fiji Airways on a weekly basis, is turning out to be only a partial blessing, pleasing some of the people only some of the time .

FROM the beginning of March, the Fiji Airways service leaves Fiji each Monday, makes an overnight stop in Vila, New Hebrides, and arrives in Honiara, BSIP, at 2 p.m.

Tuesdays.

Two hours later, the TAA plane from Lae (a Fokker Friendship one week and a DC3 the next), also ar rives at Honiara. The following morning, around seven, both planes depart again—the Fiji Airways plane for Nadi which it reaches about 7.30 the same evening; the TAA plane for Lae, via BSIP and Bougainville airports and Rabaul. BSIP’s aerial communication with the outside world then ceases for another week.

Not So Pleasing Some of the people who are pleased by the new arrangement are the very few who want to travel quickly between the New Hebrides and New Guinea, or vice versa; and BSIP public servants going on leave to Europe who can now (with a little bit of luck), make a connection with Qantas at Nadi on the same day they leave Honiara.

Those who find the new arrange ment useless are those who have busi ness in all the groups of the SW Paci fic but for whom one night in Honiara is too short while eight days is about twice too long.

Apart from the too-short or too long stay in Honiara, the limited capacity of the Fiji Airways aircraft, which carries about 10 passengers, is also an obstacle to those who ima gine they are going to do a grand tour of the SW Pacific.

Booked Far Ahead With the Overseas Aid Scheme now extended to BSIP, air travel to the UK by the shortest route is just about obligatory for leave-going civil ser vants. The shortest route to the UK from BSIP is via Nadi and the USA, and the 10 seats on Fiji Airways’

Heron are almost solidly taken up by these travellers.

It is therefore necessary, at present, to book at least three months in ad vance to be sure of a seat on a FA plane out of Honiara for New Heb rides airports or Fiji.

The TAA planes from the New

RABAUL WEDDING: Married recently at the Rabaul Church of St. George the Martyr were Mr. and Mrs. Robin Staude. The charming bride was formerly Estelle East, well-known Rabaul girl. The best man was Mr. Jim Fraser and the bridesmaid Ellayne East. The couple will live permanently in Australia.

inea end, being over twice as large FA’s Herons, are now just barely ring with the once a week schedule ometimes by the expedient of the ilts nursing quite large children, iffic offering at present probably [rants another service every alter e week—that is, three planes in a tnight. [his would relieve pressure on the sting service and allow people who ated only a few days in the Pro orate to arrange their schedules ordingly. While this still would get over the hurdle imposed by fact that FA can now only cope h the civil service traffic, it would mit a means of exit via New inea and Australia or via New inea, Biak and Manila.

Quick Mail

things stand at present, Fiji ways service from Fiji via the tv Hebrides to Honiara provides ck mail service between the Pro orate and Fiji and a means by ich civil servants who plot their /e long in advance can get a run g start on their way to the UK. spur-of-the-moment travellers aid do well, for all practical pur es, to disregard it as a means of ting from New Guinea back to stralia via New Caledonia, or to , via New Hebrides. This present ation may be helped when the al BSIP company (see below) gets ng, but only if it is permitted to an occasional charter to Bougain e or New Hebrides. )ne by-product of the first meeting Fiji Airways and TAA aircraft Honiara on March 5 (previously Airways arrived in Honiara Mon s and departed Tuesday morn s), was the chaos it produced in niara’s one residential hotel. [he Mendana Hotel has a recep i area that could accommodate the ole population of Honiara at a ch, but it has only 12 bedrooms I 24 beds. On March 5 it suddenly I to accommodate two air crews, iving passengers from the two nes and passengers who were de ting next morning. There were, of irse, not enough beds to go round.

Confusion reigned for some hours 1 out of it grew a rolling party that ;an at the Guadalcanal Club and led at the hotel between 2 a.m. and vn—to the fury of those guests 0 had managed to get a bed and 1 decided to sleep in it.

By the following week’s “plane ;ht” most of the accommodation übles had been ironed out.

BSIP Local Service Crowley Airways of Lae is ex

pected to begin its local BSIP opera tions in April. The company will use Henderson Field 10 miles from Honiara, as a base and hangar and workshops have recently been com pleted. A two-engined, 10 passenger De Havilland Dove will be used.

The services will be non-scheduled, at least initially, and the operation will have to stand on its own feet— there will be no government subsidy.

The Protectorate was peppered by war-time strips down the western chain of islands bordering the Slot, or

New Georgia Sound, and while some of these have reverted to secondary growth, an adequate number is still serviceable. These include Henderson Field, Honiara; Yandina (private Lever Bros, strip), in the Russell Islands; Barakoma on Vella Lavella; and Munda, on New Georgia. Segi Pt. airstrip on SE end of New Georgia is being reconditioned; a new strip at Kirakira, on San Cristoval, will be built during 1963.

Everything is set to go in BSIP local aviation. Its success or failure will depend on just how well it is

patronised by government and private enterprise. It would be a thousand pities if it were allowed to fail; for too long development in the Group has been geared to the communica tions provided by small-ship.

Something speedier might now give the Protectorate the extra shove that it needs at this stage of its history.

GEIC Service Fiji Airway's projected air service between Fiji and Funafuti, Ellice Islands, and Tarawa, Gilbert Islands, will probably begin about the end of the year, and possibly some time in October. The service is expected to be fortnightly.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies recently approved an appli cation for £46,800 from Colonial Development and Welfare funds for airfield facilities in the GEIC, and the GEIC Government will contri bute a further £5,200.

The scheme provides for the en largement of an airstrip at Bonriki on Tarawa to make the strip 6,800 feet long and 400 feet wide, and for clearing and surface repairs to a wartime strip 5,500 feet long at Funa futi.

Accommodation for passengers and air crew will be provided at Tarawa, and navigational aids will be set up at Bonriki and Funafuti and at an intermediate point.