COSTLY SERVICE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 361, 24 October 1932, Page 3

COSTLY SERVICE

AUSTRALIAN AIR MAILS COST £20,000 A TON. "Our air mail costs us £20,000 a ton; that is taken from the official figures of the Civil Aviation Department," said Major H. T. Shaw at a meetifig of the Air Convention Committee, which was beld in Melbourne recently. "It costs £100,000 a year to carry five tons. Since the inception 51 tons 2 cwt. has been carried, and the money spent has been approximately £1,000,000." The secretary, Flight-Lieutenant W. R. Garrett, remarked that on certain lines in Queensland the cost was now £7 a lb. Each time a passenger put his foot in an aeroplane there was a cost of £10 to the taxpayer. On the air mail between Adelaide and Perth the fare was the same as by train, because , £61,000 was paid in subsidy. The chairman, Captain E. G. Roberts: Th'e operating expenses of the company are more than paid by the subsidy. The public does not bother about it, so it just goes on. .The secretary said that no one in the department had actual expsrience of commercial aviation. Mileage of the air routes compared with population was quoted, instead of the number of aircraft in operation and the number of pilots and engineers in employment. Major Shaw: For the £1,000,000 spent they have given us 61 aircraft, 28 pilots, and 30 mechanics. Other members expressed the opinion that control of civil aviation should never have been vest'ed in the Defence Department; that this was like putting mail ships under control of the Navy. A Department of Transport was needed.