T.E.A.L. And Qantas Protected Till 1964

Press, Volume C, Issue 29500, 29 April 1961, Page 12

T.E.A.L. And Qantas Protected Till 1964

Protection of T.E.A.L. until Mangere was opened, when the airline’s Electras would be paid for and it could be re-equipped with jets was given by the agreement reached between the Australian and New Zealand Governments for New Zealand ownership of the airline, the Minister of Civil Aviation (Mr McAlpine) said yesterday. The Minister’s prediction that pure jets would be operated only into Mangere will cause widespread disappointment among those who have favoured the development of Christchurch airport for pure jet services.

Under the deal, the Tasman would be closed to all

airline* except T.E.A.L. and Qantas until 1964, the Minister said. The two Governments had agreed that until Mangere opened the Tasman traffic would support nothing more than the operations of those two airlines.

If the Tasman was opened to any other international airline, T.E.A.L. would be fared with spending £9m to £lom to re-equip with pure jets if it was to have any hope of survival, he said. “It is our express wish and hope that this should not happen until the Electras are paid for in 1964. at which time 8.0.A.C. will make available by hire or other means the latest model British pure jets. Thus reequipped. T.E.A.L. could compete with anybody.” The deal safeguarded the future until Mangere was

after which a fresh

deal might have to be negotiated with overseas companies. The Minister said Qantas had the right to begin flying to and through Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch on October 1 of this year; and New Zealand would be entitled to carry substantially more than half the traffic offering from the Dominion to Australia and to Fiji. Me McAlpine would not be drawn last evening on Christchurch’s prospects of having a jet service. He recalled that he had been a keen advocate of the development of Harewood as an airport. Now he could not be parochial, but had to look at the problems of the country as a whole and decide what was best. He was happy with the agreement whereby New Zealand had its own international airline owned and controlled in the Dominion.