AIR MAIL TRANSPORT

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 11, 14 January 1933, Page 12

AIR MAIL TRANSPORT

REVELATION OF* GROWTH

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, Ist December. An aviation authority comments: "The well-meant activities of some thirty or so international Commissions, committees, and sub-committees a mighty burden for a young industry which might tax the endurance even of merchant shipping—the apathy of postal authorities, and the passive resistance of many people now high in authority who were torn in an earthbound age, undoubtedly have braked the progress of civil aviation. They have failed to stop it; facts such as those now revealed about the growing volume of air maii transported along the* regular British air lines are sufficient proof of that. In 1924-25, the first year of operation of the "combine" company Imperial Airways, letters carried by "British airliners numbered about 200,000, "and the parcel mail weighed about 40,0001b The following year saw an advance to 300,000 letters, and nearly 60,0001b of goods, and at the end of another twelve months the figures were respectively more than 2,000,000 and 80,0001b. At the present time, according to the latest available statistics, letters air-borne during the year amount to more than 6,000,000, and the parcel mail to approximately 100,0001b. Expressed differently, airmail has increased thirtyfold in eight years and air-borne goods by 150 per cent. The way of the air-line operator has not been easy. Difficulties inevitable in the development of an entirely new method of transport, with no guiding background of experience, have been augmented and supplemented by obstruction and hampering regulations in many lands. Aeroplanes have never possessed a freedom of the air comparable for a moment with the freedom of sea enjoyed from time immemorial by merchant ships. '