A New Name And New

Briefs:

Routes For Teal

A familiar name will begin to disappear from Pacific air routes on April 1, when Tasman Empire Airways Ltd., known through the world as TEAL, becomes Air New Zealand The airline’s silver jubilee year has been chosen for the death knell of a name that really means something in the South Seas

TSLANDS people will find it hard -*■ to accept the new name, and despite the official explanations for it, many won’t agree it is necessary.

The word Teal has a happy ring about it; it is also the word for a bird.

The New Zealand Civil Aviation Minister, Mr. J. K. McAlpine, ex plained, “This change has been brought about by the very practical need to identify the airline more closely with New Zealand in the wider international aviation scene.

“During 1965 New Zealand’s international airline will be under taking the first big steps in a major expansion programme, the effect of which will be to convert the airline from a regional air carrier in the South Pacific into a fully-fledged trans-Pacific operator, with new routes to North America and the Orient.”

Mr. McAlpine added that the traditional short title, TEAL, would be retained as a brand name for commercial purposes for as long as it suited the company’s best interests.

Air New Zealand later this year will start to take delivery of three DCS pure jets, with which it will extend its services to Los Angeles and through Australia to Hong Kong.

It will dispose of one of its three Electras. The other two will be used for operations in and out of Melbourne and Wellington, neither of which has an airstrip capable of accommodating the DCS’s.

A new jet strip is scheduled to open at Mangere, Auckland, in November, after which Air NZ hopes to start its jet services. ☆ ☆ ☆ Commodore C. V. Edgecombe, Commodore of the P and O-Orient Line, has given Fiji an ultimatum: Do something about the smoke haze along the Suva Harbour fore shore, or I will recommend to my

company that Suva be considered an unsafe port for the Oriana to use”.

The manager of Fiji Industries, Mr. B. P. Smith, which operates a cement factory from which the smoke emanates, replied: “We are prepared to stop the cement works kiln at a moment’s notice if it is considered necessary” .

The Fiji Government plans to write to P and O-Orient head office for further information and, in the meantime, says that rain occasion ally obscures all navigation aids in the harbour while the smoke only affects the leading marks. ☆ ☆ ☆ New Caledonia’s local airline TRANSPAC has begun a new air taxi service from Tontouta airport to Magenta airport in Noumea, thus saving travellers the long and exhausting road trip from Tontouta.

Fare is 300 FP francs each way.