LONDON'S AIRPORT

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 224, 21 September 1935, Page 12

LONDON'S AIRPORT

NOW 16 YEARS OLD. ONE MACHINE A DAY TO 200. AN AMAZING GROWTH. (Special.—By Air Mail.) LONDON, August 31. Croydon Airport, from which the mail 'plane leaves for Australia at dawn every Sunday morning, completed 10 years of air transport this week. On August 25, 1919, Britain's first air liner took off on her maiden voyage. That was history. On the same day this week, between dawn and dusk,.nearly 200 aircraft took off from this same flying ground. Among -them were 20 aeroplanes taking British sportsmen to Deauville races, air liners and air cargo craft bound for all parts of the world on their lawful occasions. This was just a normal day in the life of a great airport. The first air liner, all struts and stays, started from what is now an obsolete length of concrete. It was powered by a single 300 h.p. engine. Its passengers were given sandwiches in lieu of lunch. The journey to Paris took more than four hours. At the end of that year the world had 3200 miles of regular air routes. To-day it has a quarter of a million miles. The first air liner carried a pilot and two passengers. On that same London-Paris route machines are now carrying 39 passengers and a crew of four, with engines developing moro than 2000 horse-power. Aircralt factories are working day and night to cope with the demand caused by the increase in air traffic of the last few mouths. Air liners are flying in relays, carrying passengers, mails and freight from London to Egypt, Africa, India and Australia. An official said: "Soon we shall throw further air links across the Atlantic between London and Canada and across the Pacific between California anil China." The yearly mileage flown over regular airways is now moro than 100,000,000.

American airways account for nearly half, but Britain is enjoying her share of the air boom. In the first three months of this year there was an increase of 50 per cent in passenger and freight traffic, and 100 per cent in mails carried by Imperial Airways. Tn the first six months of 1935 British aircraft and engines sold were worth £1,500.000. an increase of 33 1-3 per cent on last year. Three years ago six air routes were operated in Britain. There are now 40. In the last three years British air mail has increased in weight by 70 per cent.