Lord Howe to join
p. 45 · Read in the full issue
the jet set
LORD Howe Island, 436 miles north-east of Sydney, finally is to get its airstrip. And Airlines of NSW, which operates the Sunder land flying-boat service from Syd ney’s Rose Bay to Lord Howe, have unofficially agreed to keep the service going until the new land based service begins, sometime at the end of next year.
Two problems that have held up the building of the airstrip—who will pay for it and where it will be located—have been settled. The Aus tralian Commonwealth Government will meet 75 per cent, of the esti mated $1 million cost; the NSW State Government will meet the re mainder. The site for the airstrip has been agreed on as from Blinky Beach, across the island and into the lagoon past Windy Point. The strip will be 4,000 ft, and be suitable for Fokkers.
Not that controversy about the airstrip is over yet. Some islanders question the sense of building an air
strip which will literally cut the tiny island in two, create a noise problem and jut 200 ft across the beautiful Lord Howe lagoon.
During the season flying-boats land gracefully on the lagoon twice a week; they are a pleasant and popular mode of transport. But the service loses a lot of money and, last year, Ansett, owners of Airlines of NSW, were subsidised to the tune of $150,000 by a Federal grant. And the Rose Bay flying base is not very popular on Sydney’s crowded har bour.
The decision has been a hard one for the Lord Howe Islanders— whether to accept an end to tourism,
with the inevitable departure of the flying-boats, or accept an airstrip.
On the brighter side, fares should drop. Ansett fares for a Fokker flight within Australia on a similar dis tance are about half the present cost of flying to Lord Howe—s9o return.
There has been some talk that Ansett would want to build an hotel on Lord Howe as a price for con tinuing its services. This inevitably would bring even a greater influx of tourists to Lord Howe.
Last year Lord Howe had about 3,700 tourists. Many of them came to look at the most southerly reef in the world.