EUROPE’S AIRWAYS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 662, 14 May 1929, Page 9

EUROPE’S AIRWAYS

IMPORTANT EXTENSIONS TO SERVICES LUFTHANSA PROGRESS (United Service) LONDON, Monday. Important extensions of the transcontinental air services are included in the forthcoming summer time-tables. They will amplify and accelerate London’s aerial communications with Europe, Asia, Africa and South America, says the aviation correspondent of the “Daily Mail.”

The European air line chiefs, working in conjunction, are now concentrating upon the development of night flying. For that purpose beacons will mark the main routes to guide the pilots of airplanes to airdromes lit by 1,000,000 candle-power floodlights. They are also concentrating on spreading yet further afield the longdistance network from Croydon, which is the London air station, now one of the world’s most elaborately equipped terminal airdromes. Air liners will ply this summer to every capital city in Europe. In preparation of the plans for the big mail lines, much valuable knowledge has been gained from the first weeks of operation of the longest airway in the world —namely, the 5,000miles route flown weekly by the air liners of the Imperial Airways between London and India. This service is drawing greatly increased business each week. On Saturday the weekly air, mail from London to India reached the record figure of more than 16,000 letters. The air mail from India, consisting of 20,000 letters, which left Karachi the previous Sunday, arrived at Croydon airdrome yesterday. Although bad weather conditions were experienced on the last 500 miles, the mail was only 15 minutes late. Within the last fortnight the amount of air-borne outgoing India mail has been nearly doubled as a reward of consistent regularity. With one exception, when it was three hours late In covering 5,000 miles, the Indian air mail has arrived at its destination a few minutes before or after the scheduled time. The Lufthansa Company, of Germany, has inaugurated a third daily service between London and Berlin. This enables passengers to leave London in the afternoon and arrive at Templshofer that evening. The company named has placed three-engined sleeper airplanes on the routes from Moscow to Madrid. Later on Seville will be an air port for the German-Spanish trans-Atlantic airship mail. The Lufthansa Company will also link Moscow, via Teheran and Bagdad, with the London-Karachi service.