New Guinea

A New Look Fc New Guinea Air Services

The March decision, a years of talk, to get on \

building Lae, New Guinea

modem airport will give Te tory aviation a new look in 19 And not before time.

Australian Department

Civil Aviation experts in Mi decided to bring Lae airstrip uj Electra standard by lengthening existing runway at the Mark) Valley end.

This, it was decided, was the of the three proposals—the o two being to (a), lengthen the s at its Huon Gulf end by filling the area between present shore and the reef and extending the s out over the water; or (b), buih a completely new strip crossing present strip at an angle.

The plan adopted—to lengthen airstrip at its landward end— mean moving the present na market from the north side of Ms ham road; and relocating the pres roundabout at the junction of Ms ham and Milford Haven Roads will also require some new rout of both these roads around the i runway.

Ready by 1964

The new strip will be more tl 6,000 feet long, but will still be ab 200 feet short of recognised Elec standard length. With a gc approach from the sea, this is regarded as significant.

It is anticipated that the marl will be rehoused in the old gove ment sawmill building in the IV ford Haven area.

The work on the runway is e mated to cost about £.100,000 s will be undertaken by Comm wealth Works Department. The s strip is expected to be ready Electras some time in 1964.

At present the Australia-N Guinea service is operated by A tralia’s two major domestic airlii and both use obsolescent DC6 pisl aircraft that are inadequate for traffic. Their inadequacies have come more apparent since To torians have become more “tour class” minded.

When tourist-class was first int duced on the PNG-Australia servJ patrons shied off but now the k

as caught on, as it has m the rest f the world, and almost half of me eats provided are now tourist.

These DC6 planes, however, were ever designed for anything of the ort and the division of the first-class fheat from the tourist chaff is the aost rudimentary seen in any air raft on a long distance route.

The aircraft also have an in dequate galley—consisting of a ouple of cupboards built around he only entrance —and only two avatories, located right forward, hat must serve the whole plane.

Vhen the planes are filled to opacity, as they frequently are, it imply means that about half the :ustomers are denied the use of toilet acilities in the pre-dawn scramble jefore landing at Port Moresby.

In one way and another the pre ;ent air services to the Territory rom Sydney, with their midnight stop n Brisbane and their 6 a.m. un washed and unshaven arrival m Port Moresby, qualify as one of the most uncomfortable long air journeys in the world.

Lae's New Terminal As well as a new airport, Lae is to have a new terminal. Plans to build the terminal were approved in 1962 but building has been held up pend ing the move of TAA office personnel into new quarters. TAA’s new offices, at the rear of the present terminal, are now almost complete and when they are occupied, work will com mence on extensions to the terminal.

These will be built around the pre sent structure —which was originally built after the war by Qantas which then ran the New Guinea internal services as well as the service to Australia—and will allow the airlines to carry on business much as usual.

The new terminal will have a wide cement concourse in front where customers will have a better chance than they have at present of finding somewhere to sit; it will have more space for airline reception counters; separate quarters for health, immigra tion and Customs examinations; greatly extended refreshment bar and bookstall; and th e present toilet facilities will be multiplied several times.

The new terminal is expected to be complete before the end of the year if there is no further delay in TAA taking up its new quarters.

The present terminal, built at a time when a once or twice a week DC3 provided the Australia-New Guinea service, is completely in

adequate for present-day require ments and on a Sunday morning be tween 8 and 10.30, when Lae residents come down to buy Australian Sun day newspapers and add their num bers to the travellers, the small build ing seethes like a stirred-up ant heap and is about as comfortable as a Pitt Steet departmental store in Christmas week.

After a brief eclipse around 1959, when the main Australian air service terminated at Port Moresby, Lae is now again the main dispersal point of intra-Territory air-services.

Now, of course, added to the

normal pressure on space, the Terri tory’s 1963 conception of non-dis crimination also becomes a factor to be reckoned with. In practice this often works out that although all people are equal, some are more equal than others and travellers from Australia decanted at Lae to change planes for Rabaul or Madang or else where, find that a large proportion of the available seating capacity is taken up by native policemen; native students going somewhere on courses; native observers going to Legco or just plain native families taking a load off their collective feet.