New Airlines And

New Routes In

The South Seas

By a Staff Writer

Tremendous changes in the aviation picture will make them selves felt in the South Seas in the next two years.

AS a result of work on the new in ternational jet airport at Man gare, Auckland, more international airlines will operate increased services on new routes. Mangare will be opened in 1965.

When this happens, Japan Air Lines and Air India are both expected to put new services into the Pacific, TAI will extend its services, together with PanAm, Qantas, BOAC and —in a big way—TEAL.

Both TAA and TAI will want to cross the Tasman, in competition with Qantas, TEAL and BOAC (who have only recently put weekly ser vices across the Tasman).

Within the Islands themselves, Polynesian Airlines, based in Apia, is looking towards Fiji, and Fiji Airways based in Suva, will soon extend its services to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.

All the indications are for a real boom in Pacific tourism, with the air

lines taking a big share of it. The Tasman traffic will be most affected.

Traffic across the Tasman has been increasing steadily and now totals about 130,000 passengers a year.

Forecasts are for a 15 per cent, in crease each year. The first flying boats across the Tasman took 9i hours to cross. The present TEAL and Qantas Electras do it in under four hours but the big pure jets which will go into service when Mangare opens will reduce the time to about 2i hours.

TEAL has already announced that it will re-equip with series 52 DCBs, to be delivered in 1965. Later that year it will extend its South Pacific routes from Auckland and Papeete to Los Angeles.

TEAL plans eventually to service the whole Pacific basin, and operate direct to Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo, under its own flag in compe tition with other airlines.

Their service to Los Angeles would probably link up with a direct BOAC service over the Pole to London.

TEAL sees itself as a major inter national airline in the Pacific, and for the right to exercise its dream it will have to make Tasman concessions to France, America and Japan.

Some aviation observers feel that TEAL wants to go too fast—that it will find it difficult to compete with

Fiji's Nadi Airport, which next year will become a terminus for flights of Air India. The flights now terminate at Sydney. (See next page.) Photo: Rob Wright.

the established big overseas airlines in a tourist area which is growing more lucrative each month. TEAL’s view is that there are passengers enough for everybody.

Air India, which at present operates into Sydney, plans next year to go through to Nadi, Fiji.

It does not plan to cross the Paci fic but obviously hopes to tap inter line traffic passing through Nadi.

America already has rights into New Zealand and only requires the completion of Mangare to use them.

PanAm would go through New Zea land from Pago and on across the Tasman to Sydney or Melbourne.

America wants to build up Pago as an international airport, and with the expected big increase in air traffic it will probably be able to do this without taking traffic away from Nadi.

One of the patterns for the future seems to be for passenger traffic across the Pacific to be encouraged to fly the more colourful route via Tahiti, Pago, Nadi or Auckland, and stop over along the way rather than make the direct “dead” run Honolulu, Nadi, Sydney.

Island Plans The inter-island developments are none the less interesting, and should happen sooner.

Polynesian Airlines earlier this year put a fortnightly DC3 service through to Rarotonga in the Cooks from Apia. The Western Samoan Govern ment would now like to see Poly nesian operate a fortnightly service to Fiji, alternating with the Fiji Air ways Heron, thus giving weekly ser vice between Western Samoa and Fiji, Traffic on this sector has been in creasing and on occasions Fiji Air ways puts on an extra service during the fortnight. A matter to be resolved here obviously is that Polynesian Air lines would use a DC3 as against a smaller Heron.

Other Fiji Airways services are growing. The airline’s weekly service between Fiji and Tonga sometimes requires an extra flight to take care of backlog. This service started off as a fortnightly.

What started as one service a month between Fiji and the Solomons is now a service three times fort nightly.

And in December Fiji Airways ex pects to inaugurate a fortnightly Heron service to Tarawa, GEIC, via Funafuti. It was hoped to have been started earlier this year but there has been a delay in the delivery of air navigational equipment needed at Funafuti.