AIRWAYS SERVICES

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXIII, Issue 97, 28 April 1939, Page 8

AIRWAYS SERVICES

BOROUGH COUNCIL'S OPINION. WELLIN GTON-BLENHEIM SCHEDULE. The proposed winter time-table for Cook Strait Airways v/as submitted to the Borough Council for comment last evening by the Transport Department. The need for a later plane leaving Wellington for Blenheim- was stressed by Councillor W. J. Girling, and it was decided to suggest that the Wellington-Blenheim afternoon plane leave not later than 3.30 o'clock. The Department also wrote in connection with the Council's representations that a plane be kept at Blenheim overnight to improve the efficiency of the service to Wellington. It was pointed out that the present 9.05 a.m. trip from Blenheim to Wellington v/as made by the plane which left Wellington at 8.30 a.m. for Blenheim, so that any possible delay to the machine scheduled to leave Nelson for Blenheim at 10.15 a.m. would not affect the first departure from blenheim to Wellington. With regard to a suggestion that a plane be kept overnight at Blenheim, the Cook Strait Airways had stated that, in view of the heavy losses already incurred, the cost of providing hangar facilities, and qualified engineers at Blenheim would he prohibitive; also that the only way in which an air service eould be economically maintained was to concentrate machines as much as possible at one base. The council decided to make further representations on the matter.