MAILS BY AIR

Evening Star, Issue 22195, 25 November 1935, Page 2

MAILS BY AIR

158 COUNTRIES LINKED HEW ZEALAND'S TRAFFIC Air mail services utilised by the New Zealand Post Office have so extensively that the department has issued an air mail schedule for the use of its customers which requires 14 pages for a description of the general conditions of air carriage of postal matter and particulars of the routes covered. This publication, appropriately printed on sky-blue paper, discloses the surprising fact that 151' countries can be reached by air mail correspondence from New Zealand. The principal service is Austraha-Singapore-England, and correspondence by this route is forwarded to Australia by the regular steamers leaving New Zealand generally every Friday and connecting with the train which leaves Sydney on Tuesday night, arriving at Cootamundra fhe following Wednesday morning. From this point the mails go by air, arriving at London on a Monday 12 days later. In the reverse direction, mails are despatched from London every Sunday and arrive at Sydney on a Friday, 12 days later. When the steamer connections between New Zealand and Australia are suitable, the transit time by air between New Zealand and Great Britain and vice versa is from 16 to 17 days. An examination of the list of arrival dates in England throughout the year shows the remarkable regularity with which the mails arrive at Croydon on Mondays Air mail correspondence is also ac cepted in New Zealand to link up with the extensive services covering North, South, and Central America and the West Indies, this correspondence being forwarded either to San Francisco, Vancouver, or by the direct liners which make a connection with the air services in the Panama Canal zone. Money orders can he transmitted from New Zealand to Great Britain and Ireland by air, the Post Office undertaking to forward the advice by this route on payment of a special fee of Is 6d in addition to the usual commission, while the sender, of course, would need to despatch the order by the same method. As for the extent of the air mail, business of the Dominion at the beginning of this year, the average weekly despatch from New Zealand to England totalled 1,000 letters, but the postings have since increased to an average of 2,500 per week, though at this point the traffic seems to be stationary. Inward air traffic is of approximately the same dimensions, an average taken for the last few months showing weekly arrivals of approximately 2,500 letters from Britain, while 150 more come every week from intermediate countries served by the Imperial Airways routes in the Fast, and through the'whole length of Africa to Capetown.