Koroleva is

back on the air

A DAILY air service from Koro levu Beach Hotel to both Nad Airport and Nausori Airport, Suva got off to a good start in November A similar service operated a fev years ago.

Air Pacific Ltd., of Suva, with it; new five-passenger Beechcraft Baroi aircraft, is running the service, whid began on October 31, Prices of j one-way ticket from both airports ii £FS per person. Flying time fron either airport is less than 20 minutes The aircraft’s pilot is Mr. Rusi Milder, of Suva, a veteran of the former Korolevu air service and £ former Fiji Airways pilot.

A spokesman for Northern Hotel: Ltd., owners and operators of Koro levu Beach Hotel, said initial re sponse to the air service had beer

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x>d, as many hotel clients had lown a preference to flying to the otel instead of arriving by road.

With the growth of tourism, this •eference would become stronger.

Korolevu airstrip had been com etely renovated and resurfaced by orthern Hotels and the October start : the air service was the result of ideavours over several months to ive the air service recommenced.

IfESTERN SAMOAN airline, • Polynesian Airlines Limited, Ided to its single DC3 aircraft in rly November with another DC3, ased from New Zealand’s National irways Corporation.

The leased DC3 will be kept by \L for at least three months and lly used until the end of January, '6B. PAL in late November was waiting delivery of its DC4 aircraft, cently bought in the United States, TTA’s Caravelle jet service from ' Noumea to Vila was called off late October after little over a anth’s operation.

Caravelle flights to Vila started in e September after UTA had pre >usly postponed starting dates /eral times during the year.

PlM’s correspondent in Noumea d UTA’s Caravelle “sustained a shap” in mid-October off Vila air ip when stones apparently sucked 0 the jet engine damaged fins on 1 turbine rotor.

When the plane returned to >umea, the correspondent said, a :ision was made to change the >tor. An October 21 flight was layed a day and a Noumea-Sydney ;ht delayed for several hours be jse of engine trouble.

A UTA spokesman in Sydney told M it had been decided to retire s jet because of “faults in the Vila strip construction”. Until the air ip was brought up to jet specifica ns, UTA would continue its service :h a Heron aircraft, taken on loan m New Caledonia’s internal air ;, Transpac. That airline has just mged its name to Air Caledonie.

ORD HOWE ISLAND has sur -1 faced its first section of road. In £ October about 600 ft of road ir the Department of Civil iation’s aeradio station was sealed h coral gravel and bitumen and ished with cement kerb and gutter-