WORLD’S AIR TRAVEL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17454, 31 December 1930, Page 10

WORLD’S AIR TRAVEL

ENORMOUS MILEAGE ONIiY POUR PROFITABLE LINES Commercial aeroplanes during gjg S;„;i • I •.snetion, in its study of ciyil jWjjJgj 'This milage was made by « 'U ( aeroplanes, of Great Britain, the L u ted. States, Germany, Immec, Italy, Holland, add Russia, alone. More than 600,000 passengers yttio carried during the year, with .an avuago of 145,000 passengers earned actis.taimo equal to 035 mdes. . , An interesting fact developed is. tlut only three or four airways are operated 'at a profit, The best-paying company 'operates over airways in Colombia, but it charges, ratesfour to eight tames greater than European lines. This company, the Sociedad Colombo-Alemaita ile transport es Aereos,,'carries, (more .mini, m. a countr.v with 6,500,000 inhabitants,, than all tlie air lines in, Germany. Its success is based upon the fact that it covciS in one hour by air a distance that •takes two days bv boat and rail, and anotlieV route which is travelled; by air in eight hours takes normally eight days.' ‘ The Jmikers-Luf'tverkchr, .ol Persia', has operated for three years without subsidy, while the Lloyd Aereo, of Bolivia, and a New Guinea line are said to he paying. In comparison with railway trains, air travel is 100 times more dangerous, so the League's statisticians calculate. Autbmobilcs are 16 times safer. Based upon five-year statistics, one passenger is killed for ever 2,551,035 miles' down m Germanv r one for every 2,441,405 in 11 Ignited Stales, and one for every 2,331,815 miles flown in Great Britain. The calculations are made oil the basis' of “passenger- miles”—that is transportation of one passenger .over, one mile n» I lie unit, y In Hie United Stales there are now jnort* . than. 10.000 privately owidfd aeroplanes, one for each lI,'W people, as compared with 26,0€0,(X)0 aiitoiuobiles or one for every four people. The European coefficient is from eight to ten times smaller. While there are 787,125 miles of railways in the world, thorp are now about 136,873 ■'•miles of established air routes. List year 2000 commercial aeroplanes werp in operation; and'more'than 14,000 tons of merchandise and postal matter were transported. „, . . ... ..