Famous Early Airport Will Close This Summer

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28606, 7 June 1958, Page 10

Famous Early Airport Will Close This Summer

(From a Reuter Correspondent)

CROYDON (Surrey). Croydon, one of the oldest airports in the world, will close this summer. Thirty-nine years ago the first British airliner took off from a strip of concrete in South London. This was Croydon’s opening ceremony, and it became London’s main gateway up to the outbreak of World War 11.

Croydon iy too near London airport’s control zone for safety to be maintained as airliners become even bigger and faster and air traffic grows thicker and more complicated. There is no room for expansion at Croydon. It cannot accommodate giant jet Comets, turbo-prop Viscounts, and piston-engined Stratocruisers, Constellations and Hermes. Only small aircraft can use its runways and traffic is. by modern standards, negligible. Aircraft and companies still using Croydon will move to the new Gatwick airport, to ue opened this month. By 1959 Croydon will be offered for sale. Local councils hope to acquire the airfield, as its 400 acres are regarded as one of the best potential housing sites within 12 miles of London. A big housing estate may appear within a few years above the runways on which the famous Hannibal class airliners, forerunners of today’s luxury passenger

transports, took off on flights across the world.. The Croydon era goes back as far as the nearly days of World War I, when the Royal Flying Corps, which fathered the modem Royal Air Force, established a base there as part of the defence of London. Across Croydon’s broad acres raced the. single-seater fighters and bombers in persuit of the Zeppelin. raiders which came across the Channel in 1917. When Croydon turned from war to peace it was adopted as the customs airport of London. Commercial aircraft development in 1920, when many passengers travelled in open cockpits, wearing helmets, goggles, and flying coats, was fast. Croydon saw the inauguration, within a few years, of several of the world airlines of today. The first significant step came in 1920 when the Dutch airline, K.L.M., started a service between Croydon and Amsterdam. Another newcomer on the scene about this time was S.N.E.T.A., the forerunner of the Belgian airline. Sabena, and British operators found strong competition on the Continental routes. Competition

This competition proved too great for British groups, and in the winter of 1920 British pilots were mortified by the sight of foreign aircraft arriving while their machines were grounded because there was no traffic for them.

Eventually, British aviation achieved a really firm foundation. Three operators merged to form Imperial Airways, Ltd., predecessor of today’s worldencircling British Overseas Airways Corporation. France, too, entered the Croydon picture with the formation of Air France.

Within 10 years traffic had grown to such an extent that £267,000 was voted for the erection of new terminal buildings and hangars. Croydon was also the triumphant arrival point for aviators whose names will long be remembered in flying history.

Thousands massed on its fields to watch Colonel Lindbergh touch down from Paris in the “Spirit of St. Louis” after his dramatic solo flight across the Atlantic. The late Amy Johnson returned to Croydon after her famous solo flight to Australia.