4000 LETTERS WEEKLY

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 197, 18 May 1936, Page 2

4000 LETTERS WEEKLY

Steady Growth of Overseas Air Mails GREAT SAVING OF TIME Constant growth has been shown in (be air-mail business of the New Zealand Post Office on the AustraliaEngland and other routes associated with Imperial Airways. The service commenced in November, 1934, and during the first year the average number of outward letters was 2500 weekly. To-day the weekly outward dispatch exceeds 4000 letters, and this volume is being maintained at a point m excess of the special business always to he expected prior to Christmas, when the monthly total rose to just under 14,000 letters. It will be seen from the following details of monthly business this year that the Christmas volume is now being regularly exceeded : — Monthly Outward Dispatches.

Inward air-mail business has shown an average during the past fifteen weeks of 3374 letters per week, and this is an improvement on the previous year’s average, which was 3000 weekly, it is evident from these results that ail-mail facilities are in regular use for both business and personal correspondence, as they give a very distinct advantage in time of transit. Tlie average time taken by mails forwarded to Great Britain by ordinary means via North America is about twenty-nine days, lint mails dispatched by the Australia-England air service generally take about seventeen days. Not only is correspondence for Great Britain accelerated, but a considerable saving of time is made in respect of correspondence for other countries. For instance, the exchange of correspondence between New Zealand and South Africa has been unsatisfactory for some years. The steamer connections between Australia and South Africa are few and irregular, and on occasions it has been necessary to forward New Zealand mails for South Africa via Colombo in order that they would not be delayed unduly. The time taken by steamer between Adelaide and Durban is about twenty days, and, with the Tasman crossing and the possible wait in Australia for a steamer, mails have taken a month to six weeks in transit. But with air-mail correspondence to South Africa, forwarded _ to Australia by steamer, the total time taken to reach its destination is twenty-one days. It is carried by air from Australia to Egypt and then by the Imperial Airways branch service to Cape Town. The recent extension of the Imperial Airways service to Hong-Kong, connecting with the Sydney-Croydon route at Singapore, has resulted in an appreciable amount of regular business.

1936. 1935. No. Lb. No. Lb. January 9,422 295 3,490 109 February .... 11.197 332 5,768 206 March 15,275 458 6,541 205 April 16,469 513 4,964 266 Totals (four 786 months) . 52,363 1,593 20,763