Who Said History Never Repeats?: Airlines

This weekend marks 61 years since that great Anzac enterprise, Tasman Empire Airways Limited, took to the trans-Tasman skies. The partnership that formed the fledgling airline included Qantas and the NZ Labour Government. No debt-laden predecessors were sacrificed or written off in the process.

For more history read on:

Tasman Empire Airways Limited, formed by Qantas, Imperial Airways (BOAC), and a partnership of Union Airways of New Zealand and the New Zealand Labour Government, inaugurated a weekly service between Sydney and Auckland on 30 April 1940.

The trans-Tasman service used two Shorts Empire Flying Boats - Aotearoa and Awarua.

The first flight - operated by Aotearoa - left Auckland at 6:00am, arriving nine hours and 15 minutes later at Rose Bay, a distance of 1,348 miles. It carried nine passengers and about 40,000 letters.

In 1961, Qantas began operations in its own right across the Tasman, in pool with TEAL (wholly owned by the New Zealand government by that time).

Source: www.qantas.com (of course)

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