73,000 MILES OF AIRWAYS IN THE WORLD.

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6911, 17 May 1929, Page 8

73,000 MILES OF AIRWAYS IN THE WORLD.

SERVING 400 TOWNS There are now more than 73,000 miles of organised airways throughout the world, serving 400 cities and towns. This is one of the facts revealed by the new Febru-ary-A-pril issue of the Aerial A.B.C. When the first daily air service between London and Paris was started 9i years ago, a 360-h.p. aeroplane carried two passengers and a pilot. To-day on this route, three-motored ’planes, developing 1,000 h.p., carry 18 passengers and a crew of three men.— pilot, wireless operator, and a steward, who serves refreshments. In 1919 about 20 people crossed the Channel weekly by air. Last season during one of the busiest weeks, 2,000 passengers flew in and. out of the London air station. Yon can now walk into the large domed booking hall at our "Charing Cross of the air,’' and buy a flying ticket for places as distant as Persia or Northern Africa, Moscow', by a new luxury air service, is only 29 hours from London. Imperial Airways will open a through route from England to India, bringing Karachi within six days of London. When this 5,000 miles airline is at work, Britain will be operating tho longest organised aeroplane route in the world. Further extensions, crossing India and proceeding still farther eastward, will in due course reach Darwin, on the Australian coast and link up with the existing system of Australian airways.