THE AIR MAIL

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 85, 7 October 1933, Page 13

THE AIR MAIL

RIVALRY OF NATIONS

BRITAIN NOW OUTSTRIPPED

NEED FOE MOEE SPEED

The latest "bid in .the international competition for air traffic has been made by France, where five great airline companies have been merged into a combine known as "Air France." Services to Asia Minor and the East will bo speeded up and otherwise improved by the combine, which will also operate the South American service, in opposition to the .Germans, who have built "floating islands": in- readiness for a, regular service, to Brazil, writes Norman Macmillan in the "Daily Mail." ■■■■■• In 1919 and 1920 a British company considered the possibility of !aii air service to Scandinavia; and Berlin, Lethargy upon the part of the Government respecting the subsidising of air transport forced that' company out of existence. And within three years of ther end of the war (at the conclusion of which we had the ' largest and finest air service, with the best collection of pilots and material in the whole world.) this country had lost its great chance of running many of the main European air transport, services. I learned the sequel when I travelled back to London from Helsingfors the other day. The first part of the journey from the clean-swept, granite city of the north to' Stockholm was made in a German-built, all-metal seaplane, equipped with three motors made in Germany under licence from an American company. The, pilot was a Fimi who a few years before had beeu the pupil of a British instructor. COMING TRUE. From Stockholm to Copenhagen we macle the journey by night train sleeper. We left Copenhagen in an aeroplane designed and built in Holland, fitted'with three motors built in America, and manned by a Dutch' crew; landed at Amsterdam in a few minutes over three hours—average speed 130 miles an, hour —where we had lunch before proceeding in ■ a similar aeroplane to London. We left Copenhagen at 9.10 a;m. and. landed at Croydon aerodrome at i4;ls' p.m.; If this service had /been British it would havo used British material and brought orders to this country to create employment for British workmen. ! ' Sir Sef ton Brancker, who was killed in the 8101 airship1 disaster, prophesied at the Air Conference in 1923 that iv the future a; whole system of air transport lines would link up the earth, and be run. at a profit. At the time he'was called an optimist, but today his*word» are rapidly coming true. If one posts an air-mail letter in London late this afternoon it is delivered in Stockholm tomorrow morning and in Helsingfors tomorrow afternoon. The whole of Europe is covered'by airlines. On the other side of theglobe, air-mail letters reach' Bogota in; eight days, instead of a month; Buerios Aires in ten days instead.of twenty-one; while up and down and. across the length and breadth of' North and South America there is a perfect network of air-lines run by American, Trench,,and German companies. Last.year the Dutch company was able to repay to its Government £28,000 from its profits as a return against subsidy. Our own Imperial Airways £l shares aro today quoted at'29s; ■ '■'-■■"■'; -':.■■ ■■ .-:- ■■'-"■" . • For 1934 the German air transport company, is basing its time-table upon an average speed, jn all weathers of 136 miles an hour, of, the 9,5 miles "an hour schedule it^has hitherto maintained. ■„.,..- :\ AIR-TRANSPORT AOE, These things are enough to show that, the world is on the verge of the- real air-transport ago. For i this country the important thing to consider is whethorGreat Britain is taking lier full part in this development.'. . Apart from the Empire services, the 6nly British /air routes covered from London arci those- to Paris, Basle, Zurich, Brussels, and Cologne. At-the present time more air mail is carriednightly on the run'from Stockholm to London than the weekly quantity from London to the East, ' because- the Swedish Post Office sends all firstclass mails b^ air. The French, ,the Germans, and the Americans : all run air services to South, America, yet Great Britain, with £600,000,000 invested in the Argentine, looks on. The German Eurasian company runs an air-line from Shanghai almost to the frontier of Bussia. Two more short links and the line from London to Shanghai will be completed —probably this summer—run throughout by a combination ofi German, EussoGerman, and Russian 'companies with an intended schedule of six days from Berlin to Shanghai. British air mail still travels in passenger aeroplanes on British air-lines because the Post Office will neither charter space nor guarantee a minimum load, either of which would enable special fast mail-'plancs to bo run. True, the Post OfSce has put up bluo pillar boxes and has issued an air-mail schedule. But it will not issue joz weights to each post office to help to make the air mail cheaper. COSTS MORE. While a foreign post office will weigii an air-mail letter to 5 grams (l-6th of an ounce), the N British Post Office refuses to weigh to less than -}oz. The result is that a letter,sent by air to Buenos Aires costs four times as much when sent from London as one of the same weight costs when forwarded in the opposite direction; and the1 surplus goes to swell the profits of the Post Office, not those of the air companies. . In the past the Post1 Office has had to change1 mail carriage from the sailingship to the steamship, from the stagecoach to the railway. Some time in the future it must change mail carriage from terrestrial travel to the air. But, by all the odds as they appear at present, when it ddes decide upon this course the principal beneficiaries will be the foreign air transport companies, which in their combined fleets will vastly outnumber the craft of British airways. ' . , It is the Post Office which should subsidise air .transport, not the Air Ministry—as is .the case- in Sweden and in America. It is the one institution that can save us from ignominy in a few years' time in the proud rivalry of commercial air fleets. When will it make the ultimate decision to assist tiie British merchant.by arranging for the carriage of all its first-class mail by air. on routes which are run by British aircraft? Then there will be nothing to stop us from having a flay and night mail service running in two days to Karachi, three to Calcutta, four to Singapore, seven to Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, and Perth. ■ •■