NEW JET AIR ROUTES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27011, 10 April 1953, Page 14

NEW JET AIR ROUTES

AIRLINES PLAN TO SPAN WORLD TRANSATLANTIC COMET SERVICES (N.Z.P.A.—Reuter— Copyright) LONDON, April 8. A new jet air service linking New Zealand and Australia with Europe and America is envisaged under plans by major international airlines which, in the next three years, will use British jets to span the world air routes. The British Overseas Airways Corporation,' pioneers of jet commercial flying, plan to extend their operations with a route from London to Australia. From Sydney, Canadian Pacific Airlines will open a service across the Pacific as far as Honolulu with one service through Fiji and Canton Island, and another across New Zealand to Hawaii. The link between Honolulu and San Francisco will probably be opened in 1954 when British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines starts operations with Comets between Canada, America and Australia.

On the American continent, Pan American World Airways and 8.0.A.C. plan jet routes from New York to Buenos Aires, and New York to Nassau. Two 500-mile-an-hour transAtlantic routes are contemplated. Panair de. Brazil will operate a trunk route from Rio de Janiero to Lisbon, London and Paris,' and 8.0.A.C. will fly Comets across the North Atlantic. Four companies—one British, two French and one Brazilian—will have a Comet network across Africa and the Middle East. In Europe the British European Airways Viscount fleet will link up all the capitals and major cities from Scandanavia to Turkey. Atlantic Crossing The chairman of the British Overseas Airways Corporation (Sir Miles Thomas), speaking in London, said that regular jet airliner flights from London to New York in less than seven hours would soon be possible. The corporation’s jets would be flying the North Atlantic by 1954, and a year later there would be two round-the-world services. These will be by propeller turbine Bristol Britannias and the Comet cannonball service. “The performance of the Comet in making the round trip from London to Tokyo in 74 hours 45 minutes shows that our plans for girdling the world with British jet aircraft are no pipe dream,” he said. “This time for the 20,400 miles makes it the fastest passenger air service in the world. “Britain holds a four-year lead in jets, and by the end of this year aircraft will be leaving the factory at a rate most difficult to keep up with. The Comet Series II prototype will be ready for the corporation by June* and in August will fly to South America. , . , . “There are many new factors to oe gone into for the North Atlantic trips, which will be the first regular ones at more than eight miles high. Weather forecasts will .have to be made dinerenly from what they are at present. Astro and radar navigation must be thoroughly investigated.”