Island’S New Air Links

Norfolk Island and Tuvalu are looking forward to strengthening their links with the outside world. Norfolk Islanders are to enter the jet age and Tuvalu will have an ‘ airline ’ of its own.

Norfolk Island’s airstrip is to be upgraded to take medium-size pure jets, according to a November announcement by the Australian Government.

The operation will cost between $2 and $4 million.

In anticipation of this development, East-West Airlines, which operates the Australia-Norfolk service, had held talks with visiting representauves of British

Aerospace about delivery dates

or t e new BA 146 70passenger medium jet which is due for production in 1981. It also had discussions with the Dutch Fokker company about its F2B pure jet. i East-West, meanwhile, faced a challenge to its right to operated the service from Airlines of NSW, a subsidiary of the Ansett company. Airlines of NSW applied to the Australian

Government’s Department of Transport to take over the Nor folk Island service from East- West. Airline industry observers expected Airlines of NSW to persist with its appli cation and if necessary to buy medium-sized jets for the ser

v^ce -

Tuvalu Government has been negotiating for four years to establish a seaplane service throughout the group of nine islands , Thi finally started moving with the signing of an agree ment with the Auckland firm Sea Bee Air ud ear , jer t hi s y ear Houses for air operations are completed on Funafuti where hangar and maintenance facili ties are also under construc tion. The New Zealand Government has approved $55 000 for the provision of

air/ground communications

equipment and radio beacons necessary for the navigation of the aircraft within Tuvalu.

New Zealand is expected to begin shipping out the radio

equipment soon.

In the outer islands some lagoon clearance work has been undertaken to provide landing areas, and sites for the three new radio beacons have been surveyed. Two Tuvaluans are undergoing training in New Zealand in connection with maintenance of the seaplane, a Grumman Goose, and another is training in order to take charge of the air bookings op eration.

It is expected that the service will start operations in mid-1980 and that weekly flights will be made to each of the five atolls which have lagoons. The three islands of Tuvalu which are raised coral islands without lagoons, Nanumanga, Niutao and Niulakita will not be served by the seaplane. Peter McQuar rie.