[?]ate July

[?]ilberts Will [?]ave Air Link [?]ate July

From a Suva Correspondent The fortnightly air service be veen Fiji and the Gilbert and Tice Islands Colony will be in ugumented late in July. It will

e carried on by Fiji Airways

ith the small, 4-engined Heron raft which that company has perated successfully in the Cen al Pacific in recent years. for the new ser vice, begun last year, have not een hurried. The G & E Adminis ation (which has provided the air elds and much of the ground organ ation) and Fiji Airways have been ery fussy in guarding the safety ictor in what, from the air trans ort viewpoint, is completely new srritory.

For example, the planning and lacing of a beacon at Nanumea, bout half-way between Funafuti and arawa and the site of a wartime mergency landing-ground, has taken jme time.

There is little prospect of airways rofit in the circumscribed economy f the G & E Colony. But the new :rvice will be gratefully received by oth Administration and civilians. d present, they are dependent on regular, copra-gathering ships.

On present plans, a plane will leave lausori (near Suva) every fortnight nd fly, via Nadi, to Funafuti, in the Tice Islands. Next morning, it will y 700 miles along the Ellice and filbert line of islands to Tarawa, diere there will be an overnight top. The following day it will fly 11 the way south to Fiji, a distance f about 1,500 miles, along the same oute.

This round trip could become a ourist attraction. The plane, from hmafuti to Tarawa, will seldom be iut of sight of land.

The Gilbert and Ellice Islands are he world’s most remarkable chain of tolls. They are all similar—each is i more or less circular string of slets enclosing a sheltered, but isually shallow lagoon. Few of these slets are more than 10 or 24 ft above ea-level; but they appear higher be :ause of the extraordinary growth >f tall coconut palms carried by nost of them.

The G & E Government has built

modern hotel-guesthouses at both Funafuti and Tarawa, to take care of passengers and crew on the overnight stops. Each is a single-storey L-shaped building with five doublebedrooms and all amenities, and a limited liquor licence. Hitherto, the G & E Colony has had no accommodation for travellers.

The Tarawa airfield (called Bikenibeu) is on Bonriki islet, near the hospital, and the hotel has been built there. Tarawa is a very big atoll, and the Administration officials axe mostly on Betio or Bairiki islets.

For a long time, Betio carried much of the Colony’s administrative establishment—headquarters were on

Ocean Island, wheie the phosphate comes from—but Betio was almost blown to pieces in the bitter fighting of World War 11. Launches, within the lagoon maintain communication between the main islets, It is interesting to note that, with the establishment of the G & E Colony service, Fiji Airways will complete its central Pacific network of communications. Henceforward FA planes, in addition to very fully servicing all centres within Fiji, will provide regular communication east ward to Samoa, southward to Tonga, westward to the New Hebrides and Solomons, and northward to the Gilbert and Ellice..