EMPIRE AIR MAIL SERVICE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22430, 17 June 1938, Page 11

EMPIRE AIR MAIL SERVICE

Australian Letters To Go First “FIRST CALL ON SPACE” N.Z. Must Make Own Agreement (TOTTED PEESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT.) (Received June 17, 12.5 a.m.) CANBERRA. June 16. “Australia’s air mails for England will have the first call on the space in the flying-boats when the new Empire service is inaugurated next month,” said the Minister for Defence (Mr H. V. Thorby) to-day. He added that Qantas Airways had contracted to carry all available Australian mails, and so long as they fulfilled their obligation they were entirely free to make contracts with other parties for the carriage of mail and other freight. The Minister said that if the New Zealand Government wished to ship mails to Australia for transport by air to London, it -would have to make its own agreement with the company. The carriage of those mails would he dependent upon the flying-boat’s capacity to take them after providing for Australian mails.

In a statement at Wellington on Wednesday, the Postmaster-Gfeneral (the Hon. F. Jones) said that by the middle of next month all first-class mail from New Zealand to England would be forwarded through Australia and thence by air mail to London. The first mails over the new Empire service would be carried early in July, but on that particular dispatch there would be a surcharge. The ‘-all-up” rate would operate from about the middle of July, Mr Jones added. It would take letters from New Zealand only about a fortnight to reach London, and the time would be reduced with the operation of the Tasman air service, which was at present the subject of final negotiations. Further reductions in time might fce expected with future development of the through service.