Pacific Transport

Air Niugini Goes Pool With

Qantas For Australian Services

Air services between Australia and Port Moresby after Papua New Guinea becomes independent on Sep tember 16 will be provided by Qantas and Air Niugini under a pool arrange ment.

Qantas will have four passenger/ freight flights a week from Sydney, using Boeing 7075. Two of these flights will call at Brisbane; the other two are direct. Air Niugini will operate five Boeing 727 flights a week between Brisbane and Port Moresby, and four a week between Cairns and Port Moresby, using Fokker Friend ships. These will also be passenger/ freight services.

Air Niugini will use aircraft chartered from Ansett and TAA.

The Qantas Sydney-Port Moresby flights will be on Mondays and Thurs days via Brisbane, leaving Sydney at 8 am, arriving Brisbane 9.15 am, and leaving at 10 am. The time of arrival in Port Moresby is 12.45 pm.

On Fridays and Sundays the air craft will fly direct, leaving Sydney at 8 am, and arriving at Port Moresby at 11.45 am.

Two return flights, via Brisbane, will leave Port Moresby on Mondays and Thursdays at 2 pm, and arrive at Brisbane at 4.50 pm. They will leave Brisbane at 5.45 am, and are scheduled to arrive at Sydney at 7.5 pm. On Saturdays and Sundays, the aircraft will leave Port Moresby at 1 pm, fly direct to Sydney arriving at 4.35 pm.

The Air Niugini services from Brisbane to Port Moresby will be on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, leaving at 10 am, and arriving in Port Moresby at 12.40 pm. The return flights, on the same days, will leave Port Moresby at 1.30 pm and arrive at Brisbane at 4.5 pm.

Passengers from other parts of Australia who are travelling to Papua New Guinea will have to travel to Sydney to join the Qantas flights on Mondays and Thursdays, and to Bris bane on the other days to join Air Niugini flights. Sydney people, of course, will have to fly to Brisbane In interstate aircraft on the days there ire no flights from Sydney to join Port Moresby-bound aircraft.

The first schedule under the Qantas- Air Niugini pool arrangement will operate from September 18.

Air Niugini has appointed Qantas its general sales agent in Australia.

Qantas will control all reservations for both airlines, which is a tidy ar rangement for passengers and ship pers.

An important point in these new arrangements is that Qantas will be taking cargo to Port Moresby. In the past, Qantas, which flies regularly through Port Moresby to South-East Asia, has not had freight rights to PNG, these being reserved for Ansett and TAA through Brisbane, even though at times there have been big backlogs of Australian freight sitting at TAA and Ansett Sydney and Bris bane depots.

Similarly, Qantas has been able to take passengers to Port Moresby only if they have a through ticket to the North.

Air Niugini, using chartered air craft, will make its first international flight, other than to Australia, on September 19, flying from Port Moresby to Manila and Hong Kong.

Qantas will charter it a Boeing 707, which will have an Air Niugini flight number.

Air Niugini will have to rely on chartered aircraft for some time yet.

It may lease a jet fleet, plus crews, from Tempair, a British charter com

pany. Tempair was one of four companies which tendered to supply aircraft for PNG international ser vices. The others were Qantas, TAA and Ansett. Tempair’s tender was the lowest, but the PNG National Airline Commission still has to satisfy itself on Tempair’s operational capability.

Ansett and TAA, which have been flying into Papua New Guinea for many years, will charter aircraft to Air Niugini for the Australian flights, at least till after the busy Christmas period. This will give Air Niugini about four months to work out some permanent charter or purchase ar rangement.

There will be a lot of negotiations before firm decisions are made about additional international flights for Air Niugini. If Air Niugini has any par ticular targets, the PNG Government will have to negotiate landing rights, which will mean granting reciprocal rights for other carriers to fly into

Png.

Japan, which has a growing trade in PNG, is one country which is likely to seek rights there, either unilater ally, or in return for granting Air Niugini rights in Japan. Air New Zealand, with a growing fleet, is likely to be looking closely at possible NZ-PNG services. Airlines in the Far East are others expected to seek rights in PNG.

Air Niugini will soon need a new

general manager, who will be at the helm during a crucial period in the young airline’s history. The present general manager, Mr Ralph Conley, who has built up Air Niugini in its formative period, will leave in January. His successor has not yet been chosen. The chairman of the PNG National Airline Commission, Mr Paul Pora, said a number of people would be considered for the post.

Noumea Preparing

For Jumbo Jets

New Caledonian airport authorities have announced plans to prepare the Fontouta runway to receive 747 iumbo jets by about April 1976.

The necessary modifications to Noumea’s international airport at Fontouta include widening the whole ength of the present runway as well is adjacent access areas. The cost is :stimated at about SAI million, of vhich $90,000 would be granted by he Department of Civil Aviation, vhile almost $1 million would be »orrowed from the French Reserve lank, Mr Jean Cheval, president of the 'Jew Caledonian Chamber of Com merce, which manages the Tontouta irport, said it was hoped construc ion work could begin by early )ctober. The project is expected to ake up to six months to complete.

Since the huge new pasenger ter linal was opened at the T’ontouta irport in November, 1972, the Cale omans have been seeking the funds ) provide for jumbos, looking for c'd to the day when these planes ould be able to land their hundreds f passengers on the island. In 1974, ,320 flights passed through Tontouta irport.

Meanwhile, two Fokker Fairchilds cached New Caledonia from their S manufacturer late July to begin :rvice August 4 between Tontouta id Vila, New Hebrides. They re ace the Caravelle previously used y UTA on this route. The new air aft are smaller and slower than the aravelle, and will take 40 passengers id make 14 return trips weekly, impared to the previous six. Travel ig time is U hours.

At the same time, UTA was :gotiating with Air Melanesiae over e possibility of using the Fairchilds i the internal route between Vila id Santo.

Ig Wage Lift For

As Carrier Crew

Fiji seamen benefit, handsomely, inks to the Australian Seamen’s lion, but Islands residents who use uefied petroleum gas from Aus ilia, are finding the cost becoming

more expensive. The gas is shipped to half a dozen Pacific Islands by the Gas Supply Co Ltd, a subsidiary of the big Australian company, Boral, in the carriers Island Gas, Pacific Gas and Fiji Gas.

Liquefied Gas Carriers (Fiji) Ltd, which operates Fiji Gas, recently had to bow to a demand by the Aus tralian Seamen’s Union to pay 14 Fiji seamen in the ship $1,250 each, plus an extra $49.25 a day in wages for each day the ship operates in the Australian coastal trade.

The ship operates in Australian waters for four to six months of the year. The basic rates of pay for the seamen is $144 a month. But add to that the $49.25 a day they receive above the basic pay, and their mini mum for four months is very close to $6,500, which would easily make them the elite of Islands workers.

It is not hard to guess who ultimately pays.

The Fiji Gas needs a special single voyage permit to operate along the Australian coast, and gets this only when no similar specialised Aus tralian ship is available. Permits are not hard to come by.

Early in June, the Australian Sea men’s Union declared the Fiji Gas would not be allowed to sail unless the crew received Australian pay rates while on single-voyage permits. Con ditions for lifting the ban were a lump sum of $1,250 for each seaman, paid into a bank account, plus $49,25 over and above normal pay when the ship is in Australian waters.

The Fiji Prime Minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, at the South Pacific Forum in July, expressed some reser vations about a regional shipping line, because of the attitude by maritime unions in Australia and New Zealand.

He mentioned the Fiji Gas incident.

This led to his difference of opinion with Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Senator Don Willesee, about whether his remarks should be set out in the communique.

Senator Willesee said the matter had been settled, but did not mention the facts of the settlement.

Gas Supply Co Ltd ships bulk liquefied petroleum gas from Aus tralia to Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides, Fiji, Tonga and the Cook Islands. In many areas “bottled” gas has come in at a time of social change, helping in better living.

Polynesian and Melanesian house wives, among their manv duties, have always had to collect firewood. But now they are freeing themselves of that task and turning to gas.

The tourist industry has also given a lift to the use of liquefied gas as more and more hotels, motels and top class restaurants have been built.