GERMAN AIR GROUP PLAN NEW SERVICE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18548, 23 August 1928, Page 15

GERMAN AIR GROUP PLAN NEW SERVICE.

ATLANTIC TRAVELLERS TO BE RUSHED FROM ERIN TO EUROPE. (United Preee Asm.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, August 21. A German plan to establish airlines from Ireland to the Continent, across the heart of England, is revealed by the “ Daily Express." The Junkers firm proposes to rim passenger aeroplanes from Queenstown, via Dublin, Liverpool and Hull. TransAtlantic passengers will be picked up at Queenstown and raced to Hull where seaplanes will carry them across the North Sea to Copenhagen, Oslo, and Stockholm, thereby saving from thirtysix to thirty-eight hours. There will be a connecting airline from Hull to London, linking up with the present Paris-Berlin-Vienna service. It is expected that the time between Dublin and London will also be reduced from twelve to three hours.

It is stated that the idea was originally submitted to Imperial Airways, Ltd., who rejected it, and the Junkers enthusiastically took it up. The aviation expert of the “ Daily Express” points out that Germany is iat present operating 14,500 miles of European air routes, France 8800 and Britain 1000. Germany’s 160 airlines fly 40.000 miles, Britain's twenty-one lines fly 3000 miles. The " Daily Express ” editorially describes this as humiliating and alarming. The British record is a disgrace and the question is asked: " Are we to witness the staggering spectacle of German aircraft flying regularly across England? Neither self-respect nor commonsense can allow it.”

Captain F. E. Guest, M.P., says that unless England is careful the airway to the Cape, the most valuable within the Empire, will also be captured by foreigners.—Australian Press Association.