New Caledonian Skies

Move To Get Air-India Into New Caledonian Skies

From Fred Dunn in Noumea New Caledonia’s Territorial Assembly unanimously passed a motion early in June calling on the Administration and all competent authorities in the country to seek permission for Air-India to call regularly at Noumea.

LATER, the French High Com missioner, Mr. Jean Risterucci, promised that he would take the matter up with the authorities in France.

The idea that Air-India should call at Noumea followed: O A violent attack in the local Press by the French airline UTA on Australia’s “lack of co-operation” in developing traffic on the Sydney- Noumea run. The statement was issued by the High Commissioner’s Press Bureau. • A spirited reply by the Aus tralian Consul, Mr. lan Nicholson. • A meeting in Noumea of in terested parties to discuss the avia tion situation at which it was strongly urged that Air-India should call at Noumea.

In its attack on the Australian Government, UTA said that present air connections between Sydney and Noumea by Qantas and UTA were insufficient, and that as a result harm was being doing to New Caledonia’s developing tourist trade, which, in the future, was expected to become the country’s second industry.

UTA said that for more than a year, the French Government, had approached the Australian Govern ment through diplomatic channels to study the harmonious development of traffic on the Sydney-Noumea run without getting a positive response.

It added that the company had never aimed to grab all the traffic for itself, but rather to share it equally with Qantas.

Consul's Reply

In his reply, the Australian Consul said he was “surprised” to see the statement from the High Com missioner’s Press Bureau, and that this gave an inexact idea of the situation.

Mr. Nicholson said that he had been in Melbourne on May 31 (the day the UTA attack was published) to discuss air relations with the Department of Civil Aviation, and he was thus qualified to say that the Australian Government had been

officially asked to grant UTA a further weekly commercial “touch down” in Sydney on its round-the world flights.

No offer had ever been made to the Australian Government to in crease regional flights (Sydney- Noumea), and therefore the Aus tralian Government could not have been guilty of refusing such a request as none had been made.

Mr. Nicholson said that General Fayet (the head of UTA) had in vited the Australian Director of Civil Aviation, Mr. Anderson, to confer with him in New Zealand, but as his duties at the time made it impossible for him to leave Aus tralia, he had invited General Fayet to come to Melbourne for talks.

General Fayet had never answered.

“The French authorities have never, under any circumstances, made any proposals to me tending to improve air relations between Noumea and Sydney,” Mr. Nicholson said. “It is only the personal interest

that I have in the development of these connections that caused me to go to Melbourne. . .

Mr. Nicholson said he deplored the fact that negotiations which were soon to start between Australia and France should have been prejudiced by UTA’s published statement.

A few days after Mr. Nicholson’s reply was published, a number of local representatives of the hotel trade, members of the Territorial Assembly, Bank of Indo-China and others attended a meeting at which the interests of Air-India were strongly urged.

The contention of the meeting seemed to be that there were thousands of rich tourists in Aus tralia clamouring to go to Noumea, and that Australia, in the person of the ogre Qantas, refused to open the sluice gates which would save the city’s hotel industry.

Failure to increase air connections, it was claimed, would cause the newly-opened Nouvata Hotel to close down and would result in the Chateau Royale not opening at all.

The solution was, the meeting felt, that Air-India should call at Noumea on its weekly Sydney-Suva-Sydney trip.

Finally, the meeting called on the High Commissioner to discuss the problem and also had a resolution passed in the Territorial Assembly.