AIR MAILS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 55, Issue 3927, 16 July 1937, Page 7

AIR MAILS

EMPIRE SERVICE SCHEDULES. PLANS FOR CHRISTMAS RUSH. The announcement that an agreement had been reached between the British and Australian Governments for a service three times a week instead of twice a week each way on the Anglo-Australian air mail route, represents another step forwards towards the time when giant flyingboats and land planes will be operating daily services on the Empire routes. The proposal for a three times a week service came from Britain when it was realised that the loadings for the twice a week service originally arranged would have been too great to admit of reasonable accommodation for passengers and freights. It was realised some time ago that a twice weekly service would be unable to cope with the rush of air mail, when the no-surcharge system was adopted. Last Christmas the weight of mail was so heavy that Imperial Airways officials held a special meeting to discuss the problem. It was then decided that, in the future, about forty large machines flying day and night, in both directions, between Australia and England, would be necessary to cope with heavy demand at the festive season. Quite apart from the ordinary schedule of three services a week these planes will operate seven services a week for about four weeks before Christmas. A Probable Increase. This decision was reached following a survey of the present volume of mails, and a careful estimate of the probable increase when all first-class mail is carried without surcharge. In addition to the increased Christmas services to Australia, nine trips will be made to India each week, 15 to Egypt, and five to Africa, all with their compensating return schedules. Last Christmas the air mails which | left Britain were the heaviest on record. The 10 tons of mail which left represented an increase of 30 per Croydon on the Christmas despatches cent, on the total for the previous year. On the Australian route the increase was 21 per cent., from 12,048 lb to 14,5901 b. On the African route the rise was from 55241 b to 81681 b, an increase of 48 per cent. In 1934 the Empire services carried 143,0001 b ' of mail; in 1935, 248,1001 b, and last year 330,0001 b.

1 Information received from the traffic manager of Imperial Airways (Mr. Dennis Handover) reveals that the estimated mail to be carried by aeroplanes throughout the Empire under the new scheme might be expressed as approximately 16% ton miles annually. Even that figure is not comprehensive, because it does not include air mail between the Empire and foreign destinations, not inter-Empire mail such as from Australia to Hongkong, or from India to Africa. Actually, the weight of mail leaving England each week will be about 20 tons, amounting to nearly 2,000,000 letters from England alone, and this increase in mail will involve a readjustment of the division of space on aircraft between mail, passengers, and freight at intervals during the period Necessary for the conversion of the tri-weekly to a daily service. Remarkable Progress. The astonishing progress recorded | in commercial flying since the establishment of the pioneer air routes between London and the Continent, makes a fascinating study. Actually it was at the beginning of May just 18 years ago that the British Air Ministry gave its first official permission for civil air operations to begin in the shape of the regular carriage of passengers, mails and freight by aeroplane. Immediately this official sanction for the establishment of civil air routes had been received in May, 1919, plans were made to give Britain the distinction of opening and maintaining the world s first daily air service for passengers and urgent freight. This was between London and Paris. Three months' later the first service over the 250 miles of route came into operation. A tiny two-passenger plane set out on a summer morning in 1919 to inaugurate the service—a marked contrast to the giant flying-boats and land planes operation to-day. x Actually the first mail flights in England were made in 1911, between London (Hendon) and Windsor, the pilot being Gustav Hamel, who flew a Bleriot plane in which he obtained a ground speed of 105 miles an hour, assisted greatly by a tail wind. Regular air mails from the British Post Office, however, were first despatched from Hounslow aerodrome on y-November 10, 1919. On the first flight, strange to say, there were only a few letters as even philatelists appear to have overlooked the momentous occasion. At the present time at any given moment, there are 5,000,000 letters in transit to various destinations on British services, and an average of 3% tons of l mail leaves Croydon every week for the Empire, while air mails to the Continent usually amount 4 tons.