AIR MAIL TO LONDON

Taranaki Daily News, 23 July 1930, Page 4

AIR MAIL TO LONDON

NEW PLYMOUTH LETTERS USE OF AUSTRALIAN SERVICES. STEAMER TRANSPORT TO KARACHI By the payment of an additional 7d above the ueual postage and the use of the specially provided air docket, letters up to half an ounce in weight posted in New Plymouth can be taken by the Karachi-London air service and delivered in England ahead of the usual time. Although the actual length of time required in transmission is at present approximately the same as that taken by the usual mail boat route, the advantage of the air service can be seen from a comparison. Mails for Great Britain ’ close on Thursday and on Monday. The Port Pirie, which takes Thursday's mail, delivers ~it in London about September 3, The Monday’s mail will go by the Niagara and is due in London on August 28. By air mail the would leave from Wellington by the IJlimaroa on Thursday and connect with an Austra-lian-Indian mail boat and the KarachiLondon air service. . It would reach London on August 25, saving three days on the earliest alternative dispatch.

Besides the Karachi service the air mail is used in Australia from Sydney to Brisbane and, more important, from Adelaide to Perth. This route can be used: by the payment of 3d above the usual postage and the use of the air docket. The time saved in transmission would depend entirely upon the timetables of the Australian air mail planes.

The ..Adelaide-Perth and Karachi-Lon-don air services can both be used if the lettersyare marked and 4d air fee paid for the. Australian service and the usual 7d forHhe other —in addition, of course, to the'usual postage. Here again the time taken in . transmission would depend. upon several factors, the main one being Whether by using the Australian air- route a connection could be made with a mail boat leaving for London via the Suez Canal route. A study of the mail boat time-tables from New Zealand and Australia would allow an approximation to be made. . The air docket or stamp which it is necessary to affix to letters to be carried by air mail can be procured at the post office. They are blue in colour and about an inch and a quarter long by half an inch wide with the words “Par Avion” and, underneath, “By air mail,” printed upon them. The name of the boat it is wished that the letter be taken by should also appear on the envelope. The New Plymouth chief postmaster, Mr. F. E. Beamish, told a News reporter yesterday that four letters had been received for transmission by air mail routes in the last two days. “They are not business letters but private ones,” he said, “and the .air mail is so far used more for the novelty than anything else.” It was better, he said, to hand the letters over the counter, as was done in the case of registered mail, than post it in the usual way. The service has been available for three weeks. '