AIR-MAIL ROUTES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 50, 1 March 1937, Page 16

AIR-MAIL ROUTES

NEARLY 2000 DAILY MILES

A GROWING NEW ZEALAND SERVICE

The new air service between Nelson, Greymouth, and Hokitika, operated by Cook Strait Airways, Limited, is being included in the Post Office services of air-letter transit at the rate of 2d per ounce. The Dominion's mail services by air involve a daily roiiia milage of nearly 2000 miles. The Nelson-Grey-mouth-Hokitika service operates thrice weekly, and if this route'is added,,the route milage totals 2256, made up as follows:—Palmerston North-Blenheim, 125 miles; Blenheim-Christchurch, 174 miles; Christchurch- Dunedin, 199 miles. This service operates daily in each direction, and thus- involves a route milage of 996 miles. The Nelson-Blenheim-Wellington service, operated by Cook Strait Airways, Limited, provides a service twice daily in each; direction between Nelson and Wellington, and four times daily between Blenheim and Wellington. The distances are:—Blenheim-Nelson, 55 miles; Blenheim-Wellington, 45 miles. The daily route milage is 640. Gisborne-Napier service is operated by East Coast Airways, Limited, providing a service twice daily in .each direction, the distance between these points being 85 miles, so that the service involves 340 route miles daily. The most recent extension on the West Coast is from Nelson to Greymouth, 115 miles; Greymouth to Hokitika, 25 miles; and this service, operated by Cook Strait Airways, Limited, thrice weekly, involves a route milage of 280 miles. The Hokitika-Bruce Bay-Haast-Okurii service, operated by Air Travel (N.Z.), Limited, on a route of 145 miles, provides a "service once weekly in each ■ direction, and letters are carried without surcharge. Air mail in New Zealand is still of small proportions, but the growth in business has been, constant. The Palmerston North-Dunedin arid Nelson-Blenheim-Wellington services com* . menced'in March, 1936, and the Gis-borne-Napier route has been utilised by the Post Office since last December. ' Excluding abnormal figures' due to 1 philatelic demand for first-day covers, the following averages of letters carried weekly indicate how steadily the business is growing:— April, 1936, weekly average, 12,325; September, 1936, weekly average, 17,518; December, 1936, weekly average, 19,339; January, 1937, weekly average, 19,434. For the week ended February 7, the 'letters dispatched; totalled; 21,044, and in the week ended February 14,. the total was 21,936. The air-mail parcel system was inaugurated in iMay last, and the business is about double the average of the Jirst few months, although it is still of small, proportions, the Christmas "rush" being represented by 331 parcels carried during the week ended December-27.