Transport Briefs

• The Moana Roa, which was the principal (and most expensive) sea link between Auckland and Raro tonga for many years, will be con verted into a hydrographic survey ship for the Royal New Zealand Navy. The conversion involves ex tending the forecastle deck aft to the bridge and removing the masts and derricks. A helicopter deck will be installed aft, and there will be a hangar to house the “chopper”. The funnel will be raised slightly. • The Union Steam Ship Co of NZ Ltd has reorganised its schedules for the South Pacific following a de cision to withdraw two old ships, the Holmburn and Parera. These ships will be replaced by the Karepo, 3,500 tons. The services now will be: Union South Pacific (container ship) Auckland - Fiji - Pago Pago - Apia - Nukualofa; Karepo (crane ship)— unitised cargoes from Auckland to Fiji, Samoa and Tonga; Luhesand (refrigerated general cargo ship)— Auckland to Tonga, Tahiti and Samoa. • Fiji’s small internal airline, Fiji Air Services, in which the government has taken a financial interest, carried a record 27,000 passengers in 1974.

The figure was 35 per cent up on the 1973 figure. Revenue exceeded $500,000 for the first time. Passenger loadings on the Suva-Lakeba service rose by 80 per cent, and by 40 per cent on the Suva-Levuka service, • Three helicopters will be used to search for gas in Papua New Guinea in areas in which Oil Search has an interest. One of the heli copters was recently shipped from New York and the other two were to be flown out. • Freight rates for marine cargo from Australia to Fiji rose by 17.75 per cent recently, to make the aver age rate about $56 a ton. At the same time the bunkers surcharge was reduced from 6.08 per cent to 5.5 per cent. The surcharge on cargoes from Australia to the New Hebrides was increased at the same time from 8.9 per cent to 10.44 per cent. • Mr John Alioto, 29, has been appointed head of the Pacific Far East Line. He is the son of Mr Joseph Alioto, Mayor of San Fran cisco. Soon after his appointment he announced that PFEL had made big gains in the few months since the Alioto family paid $4.6 million for 49.6 per cent of the company’s stock.

• Each British supervised co operative society in the New Hebrides has agreed to give $l,OOO towards the purchase of a new Co-operative Federation ship. The federation plans to buy a vessel of up to 500 tons to serve all British-supervised co-ops. • The Union Steam Ship Co of NZ Ltd earned a net profit of $2,245,855 in the year ended June 30, ,1974, slightly higher than the re turn of $2,221,180 in the previous year. The dividend for the year is 6.75 per cent (which includes a final payout of three per cent), compared with 10 per cent previously. The an nual report said the company over came severe operating difficulties to earn the latest profit. © Pago Pago’s harbour had one of the busiest times in its history over the Christmas and New Year holidays with the arrival and de parture of 12 ships including four cruise vessels, the Australis (Decem ber 23), Arcadia (December 24), Oronsay (December 30) and North ern Star (December 31). • Freight rates on Bank Line ships sailing from Papua New Guinea to America rose by 12i per cent on February 1. • The Papua New Guinea Govern ment will spend $612,000 chartering helicopters over the next year for forestry, land, agricultural, road and bridge surveys, health and police emergencies and posts and telegraphs communications work. A contract for that amount has been awarded to Airfast Helicopter Utilities Pty Ltd, of Port Moresby, to provide the helicopters. • Japanese investors plan to install an oil-storage complex and port for supertankers in the Palau Islands, Micronesia, at an estimated initial cost of SUS7S million. Before the project goes ahead it will be neces sary for the promoters to get_ per mission from the High Commissioner, Mr Edward Johnston. • Interocean Swire Pty Ltd, a shipping agent owned bv John Swire and Sons Pty Ltd and NSU Transport Holdings Pty Ltd, both of Sydney, had a net profit of $26,452 in the year ended September 30, compared with $24,754 in the previous year.

The result was after a tax provision of $39,500, depreciation of $4,928, and a rise in directors’ emoluments from $4,750 to $25,000.