WELLINGTON’S AIRPORT

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 9, 6 October 1943, Page 4

WELLINGTON’S AIRPORT

Wellington's airport at Rongotai has been handicapped from the beginning by its limited scope for development corresponding with the advance of civil aviation. Extensions to runways and. improvements in other directions to meet new demands almost invariably nave had to be carried out under difficulties peculiar to its cramped environment. The airport authorities are now. confronted with the problem of making provision-for aircraft of a size and carrying capacity foi which present facilities are clearly inadequate. . More adequate facilities will have to be provided if Wellington is to maintain its position as an important centre for aircraft traffic. Whether it will be possible to do this at Rongotai is a question that apparently remains to be settled. . . . Mention was made in a report published yesterday.ot a possible runway extending from Lyall Bay to Evans Bay, which would be essential for the safe operation of 20-seater planes, the smallest machines to carry post-war traffic.” This suggestion, considered in the light of the enormous development of which, air-borne, traffic is considered to be still capable looks very much like providing merely foi the minimum requirements of the immediate post-war future, without taking adequate thought for more distant prospective, demands. Civil aviation policy must be essentially a forward-looking policy. Ihe above suggestion of a runway across the entire isthmus between the two bays would obviously involve costly settlements in respect ot property rights in addition to the actual works-cost. 1 his natuially prompts the question whether after all this has been done, the limit of still further expansion will have been reached, and larger aircraft than of 20-seater dimensions compelled to go elsewhere. The more this question is studied the more important and urgent it looms up). What seems to be required is something more than a tentative scheme. Steps should be taken to have the future development of the city’s airport placed on a basis that will provide the essential degree of elasticity for progressive expansion from time, to time to keep pace with what appears likely to be ever-increasing demands. -The first step clearly is to have made available the details of the report presented to the Government in 1937 by .the Commission of aviation and engineering experts, presided over by Group Captain Cochrane, then Chief of the Air Staff. These apparently have not vet been disclosed. There may have been reasons, connected with the war, why this report, which, it is stated, contained much valuable evidence on the subject, has so far been withheld. But there would seem no pressing reason why it- should not now be made available to the airport authority to assist it in formulating its policy for tlie future, and preparing its plans. The necessary works might well find a place in the various schemes envisaged for embarking upon during the coming period of post-war reconstruction.