IMPERIAL AIRWAY

Gisborne Times, Volume LXIV, Issue 11012, 27 January 1926, Page 5

IMPERIAL AIRWAY

MODIFICATION OF AGREEMENT WITH AIR COUNCIL. ___ ENCOURAGEMENT OF HIGHERPOWERED MACHINES. LONDON, Jan. 25.

A White Paper has been issued containing the new agreement with Imperial Airways Limited, supplementing the agreement of May 15, 1924, between the president of the Ail Council and the company. Tlie new agreement modifies tlie original agreement by substituting for the minimum annual mileage of 1,000,000 miles required to qualify for the subsidy a new composite minimum of 425,000,000 horse power miles; also providing that for the purpose of reckoning this minimum every mile performed by, marine aircraft shall count as a mile and a-half. This minimum requirement shall be met each year without any such arrangement as contained in the original agreement for averaging .the mileage in earlier years.

The modifications arc.- intended to encourage the employment of higher powered machines, and consequently will enable the company to develop towards a self-supporting basis as the subsidy decreases. They also are intended to ! prevent the development of overseas! services falling into abeyance, as the types of marine aircraft hitherto used have been found to have so high a cost of operation in relation to their paying load that there has been insufficient inducement to develop the oversea services.