EGYPT-INDIA AIR SERVICE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 26 October 1925, Page 9

EGYPT-INDIA AIR SERVICE.

IMPERIAL AIRWAYS GET SUBSIDY OP £87,000. 36-HOUR FLIGHTS. • LONDON, Aug. 15. A contract tor the establishment ot a commercial air service from Egypt to India was signed on Thuisday by the Air Ministry with the Imperial Airways Limited. The contract is for hve .years'. A subsidy of about £75,000 annually will be granted to the company, while the Government will itself spend another £13,000 annually in connection with the enterprise. _ The Government intends to maintain a ground staff along the route in order to keep control of the developments of flying in these little known parts. The commercial service is unlikely to t>c ready until the fall of next year. The Air Ministry expressed the wish that the company uses three-engmed machines in view of the unsettled nature of a large potrion of the route, which would make forced landings dangerous It will take more than a year to build the necessary ’planes. Till the Imperial Airways are able to take it over, the present fortnightly military service will be retained. Prom El Kantara, Suez Cana 1 , to Karachi, India, is 2500 miles, and once through flights are made, Egype will be commercially within thirty-six hours of India. Sir Sefton Brancker, director of service aviation, representing the Government, and Colonel Birchall and Lieut.Colonel Minchin, representing the Imperial Airways, are about to fly to the East to inspect the route and make the necessary arrangements.