Examiner (Launceston, Tas. : 1900 - 1954), Thursday 22 August 1940, page 1


BY AIR AND SEA San Francisco to Sydney SYDNEY, Wednesday-Pending a settlement of the question of landing rights, Pan-American Airways will resort to the freedom of the seas to enter the east coast of Australia. The company's 827-ton motor yacht Southern Seas will arrive at Sydney on September 2 to inaugurate a direct lortnightly connection with the clipper service at Noumen. It has been officially indicated that any application by Pau-American Airways to fly either from Auckland or Noumea to Sydney will be unwelcome to British commercial airline companies, which are anxious to "protect' routes from and into the east coast of Australia for development later. The Pan-American Airways combination yacht and clipper service will provide a seven days' schedule between Sydney and San Francisco. The Southern Seas is luxuriously appointed and has 20 staterooms. The minimum yacht fare will be about CA24 and the through fare from Australia to America about £A202. which is about £A30 cheaper than all the way by air via Auckland. DUTCH AIRLINERS CHARTERED Pan-American Airways will inaugurate a full commercial service with passengers from Auckland to San Francisco on September 14. A number of K.L.M. Douglas airliners which escaped from the Schipol airport, Amsterdam, have been chartered by the British Air Ministry, and crack K.L.M. pilots, including Smirnoff, are now flying on the resumed line between Batavia and Palestine, according to Mr. A. Berts, an official of the company. Mr. Berts arrived in Sydney to-day in a Dutch airliner which brought bags of mail from New Zealand troops overseas and from Australian naval ratings in the Mediterranean. The 'plane, which was under the command of Captain Kalberer, an American. will take the visiting American journalists to the Netherlands Indies. -While the New Zealand soldiers apparently can send mail home by the Dutch airline, the Australian troops in Palestine are not allowed to use the service. The Australian Government recently refused to accept the Dutch offer to carry air mail for the A.I.F. The line provides the fastest service between Sydney and Palestine, flying the distance once weekly in eight days.