H.—4o,

During the year the Minister has approved of exemptions being granted for the following number of motor-vehicles :—

8. COMMERCIAL AIR SERVICES. The commercial air services have continued to extend their sphere of operation, and there are now nine services in operation against the seven operating in the previous year. Cook Strait Airways, Ltd., have extended their Wellington-Blenheim-Nelson service to the West Coast to link up with the services run by Air Travel (N.Z.), Ltd., while Union Airways have taken over the East Coast Airways' Palmerston North - Napier - Gisborne service and commenced a new service between Gisborne and Auckland. Another service operated by this firm, between Palmerston North and Dunedin, has been replaced by two services, the first operating between Palmerston North and Christchurch, and the second between Wellington and Dunedin. While Table No. 33 sets out a comparison of the main statistics for the air-services over the past five years, Table No. 32 shows the detailed records for the year under review compared in total with similar figures for the previous year. n From the latter table it will be seen that the annual mileage flown has advanced Irom 1,364,351 miles in 1937-38 by 27-3 per cent, to 1,737,282 miles, the number of passengers carried has increased by 13,000, or 27-6 per cent., from 47,400 to 60,459, while the number of trips flown has risen by 48-4 per cent., from 9,818 to 14,572. The quantity of mail and freight carried shows a big advance on the previous year, the weight of mail carried, 316,229 lb., being 47-5 per cent, more than for 1937-38, while the weight of freight carried, 172,134 lb., was more than double the quantity carried in the previous year. It is also interesting to note that the percentage of trips flown to trips scheduled has been maintained at the high rate of nearly 98 per cent. Comparative figures for passenger-miles, freight ton-miles, and mail ton-miles are not available for 1937-38.

55

Number of , ,, . _ ,. Vehicles Nature of Exemption. Authority for Exemption. affected. I 45 Exemption from license fees of vehicles j Para. (3) of the Second Schedule to the designed for road-construction or road- Motor-vehicles (Special Types) Regulamaintenance purposes tions (No. 2) 1937 (270/1937). 7 Exemption from fitting of mileage-recorder • Regulation 3 of Motor-vehicle Special Taxto vehicles subject to mileage-tax ation Regulations 1933. 63 Exemption from passenger-service license Section 14 of Transport Licensing Amendof vehicles carrying workmen to and ment Act, 1936. from a public work