NEW FASHION SET

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20081, 30 October 1939, Page 9

NEW FASHION SET

WEEK-END IN SYDNEY N.Z. AIR TRAVELLERS PARTY IN AOTEAROA MR. FRASER’S MISSION (Ter Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. Week-ending in Australia has been made possible by Tasman Empire Air. ways and the flying-boat Aotearoa. Passengers who left Auckland on the morning of Friday, October 13, set a new week-end fashion by spending a full day and a half in Sydney and being back in Auckland in time for lunch on Sunday. They had travelled nearly 2500 miles in comfort and safety, making a double crossing of the Tasman high above the storms for which that sea is notorious, enjoying every moment of a journey that marked an important stage of the development in New Zealand transport. The flight westward was notable for several reasons. The passengers included the acting-Prime Minister, the Hon. P. Fraser, on his way with the official party to attend the Empire war conference in London. By choosing the Aotearoa to travel to Sydney, Mr. Fraser became the first New Zealand Minister to fly the Tasman. Also among the eight passengers were two women, Mrs. Fraser and Mrs. J. T. Waugh, the wife of Mr. Fraser’s private secretary, who became the first. New Zealand women to fly trom the Dominion to Australia. Finally, the flight was memorable because it was the first on which passengers were carried by air across the Tasman on a commercial basis. For a day and a half the passengers enjoyed Jydney hospitality and then, at 4 l’clock bn Sunday morning, they were back in the Aotearoa. After an uneventful trip, it lacked four minutes o eight hours after leaving Sydney when she landed on Auckland har>our.