EMPIRE AIR MAILS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22612, 28 December 1936, Page 13

EMPIRE AIR MAILS

SERVICES FROM LONDON NEXT YEAR'S SCHEME [from OUR OWN" correspondent] LONDON, Dec. 5 The effect on air traffic of the new Empire air mail scheme, which begin next year, was described b> Mr. D. H. Handover, traffic manager of Imperial Airways, when he delivered th Brancker Memorial Lecture in London at the Institute of Transport. It was estimated, he said, that the mail to be carried would amount to about 16.500,000 ton-miles a year. This did not include mail between the Empire and foreign countries or such inter-Empire mail as Kenya to India or Hongkong to Lagos. Twenty tons of mail, or nearly 2.000.000 letters, would leave England each week. The normal weekly services contemplated were: —London-Sydney, two; London-Singapore, three; LondonEgypt, nine; London-Kisumu, three; and London-Durban, two, with provision for connections to China and West Africa.

The Christmas peak period would necessitate the use of about 40 large aircraft day and night backward and forward for about four weeks, running seven services a week to Australia, nine to India, 15 to Egypt, aild five to Africa, all with their compensating return schedules.

Hitherto passengers had generally out-weighed mail and freight. Under the new scheme mail would outweigh passengers and freight. The first of the new fleet of flying boats, Mr. Handover announced>, already in service on the trans-Mediterra-nean section, "is achieving results well beyond our forecast." These flying boats, he added, were the fastest in the world. They had a standard of silence and comfort far in advance of any other air vehicle.

Referring to the difficulties of providing comfort for air passengers, Mr. Handover said Imperial Airways now had a chair of their own invention in which the passenger could at will sit upright for meals, 101 l back for reading, or recline to doze or sleep._ Tbo problem of keeping food cold without carrying the weight of either refrigerating apparatus or ordinary ice was now being solved by the use of dry ice or frozen liquid carbon dioxide. Mr. Handover mentioned that one difficult problem of air transport was the provision of trained personnel. The business being a new one, the supply was limited, and that applied to every grade of personnel.