AIR TRANSIT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 219, 15 September 1943, Page 4

AIR TRANSIT

A POST-WAR LEAP

HUGE ATLANTIC ESTIMATE

NEW YORK The possibility that 600 passengers will travel by air each day across the Atlantic Ocean after the war has been advanced by Edward P, Warner, vice-chairman of the U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board. Mr. Warner delivered the 31st Wilbur Wright memorial lecture before the Royal Aeronautical Society in London.

Mr. Warner pointed out that in the 12 months ending June 30, 1938, a total of 291,000 passengers arrived in the United States from Europe by steamship, while 276,000 made the opposite journey. Of these 74,000 and 55,000, respectively, were in the first and cabin classes. Plane Instead of Cable "A substantial proportion of the tourists undoubtedly welcome the sea voyage for its own sake, and will prefer to keep it as part of their holiday," he stated. "The necessary length of the non-stop flight from easternmost North America to the British Isles imposes an economic burden which is likely to reflect itself in rates of fare considerably higher than those charged for covering the same distance in Continental air transport.

"Nonetheless, I believe that it would not be too sanguine to anticipate that half of the maximum prewar travel in the first and cabin classes will be shifted to the air. Certainly, the factor of newly-created travel will be an important one in this case; for just as statesmen and soldiers have learned in the past two years to run back and forth across the Atlantic when there is need of discussion, so in future business men will board a plane where once they would have sent a catlegram. It does not seem over-optimistic to anticipate that such newly-created travel over the Atlantic will equal twice the amount diverted from the previously existing channels. (500 Daily Each Way "In considering transatlantic traffic on the other hand, we are reckoning with the interchange between population of about 90,000,000 and 250,000,000, respectively—considering only the eastern third of North America and the western half of Europe as being major contributors to transatlantic movement —with their centres of population separated by about 3/00 miles." "Upon all these bases, I believe it reasonable to anticipate a post-war average of 600 passengers by air per day in each direction between the United States and Canada, and the British Isles and the Continent of Europe."